He was an inch, perhaps two, under six feet, powerfully built, and he advancedstraight at you with a slight stoop of the shoulders, head forward, and a fixedfrom-under stare which made you think of a charging bull. His voice was deep,loud, and his manner displayed a kind of dogged self-assertion which hadnothing aggressive in it. It seemed a necessity, and it was directed apparently asmuch at himself as at anybody else. He was spotlessly neat, apparelled inimmaculate white from shoes to hat, and in the various Eastern ports where hegot his living as ship-chandler's water-clerk he was very popular.

A water-clerk need not pass an examination in anything under the sun, but hemust have Ability in the abstract and demonstrate it practically. His work consistsin racing under sail, steam, or oars against other water-clerks for any ship aboutto anchor, greeting her captain cheerily, forcing upon him a card--the businesscard of the ship-chandler--and on his first visit on shore piloting him firmly butwithout ostentation to a vast, cavern-like shop which is full of things that areeaten and drunk on board ship; where you can get everything to make herseaworthy and beautiful, from a set of chain-hooks for her cable to a book ofgold-leaf for the carvings of her stern; and where her commander is received likea brother by a ship-chandler he has never seen before. There is a cool parlour,easy-chairs, bottles, cigars, writing implements, a copy of harbour regulations,and a warmth of welcome that melts the salt of a three months' passage out of aseaman's heart. The connection thus begun is kept up, as long as the shipremains in harbour, by the daily visits of the water-clerk. To the captain he isfaithful like a friend and attentive like a son, with the patience of Job, theunselfish devotion of a woman, and the jollity of a boon companion. Later on thebill is sent in. It is a beautiful and humane occupation. Therefore good water-clerks are scarce. When a water-clerk who possesses Ability in the abstract hasalso the advantage of having been brought up to the sea, he is worth to hisemployer a lot of money and some humouring. Jim had always good wages andas much humouring as would have bought the fidelity of a fiend. Nevertheless,with black ingratitude he would throw up the job suddenly and depart. To hisemployers the reasons he gave were obviously inadequate. They said'Confounded fool!' as soon as his back was turned. This was their criticism on hisexquisite sensibility.

To the white men in the waterside business and to the captains of ships he wasjust Jim--nothing more. He had, of course, another name, but he was anxiousthat it should not be pronounced. His incognito, which had as many holes as asieve, was not meant to hide a personality but a fact. When the fact brokethrough the incognito he would leave suddenly the seaport where he happenedto be at the time and go to another--generally farther east. He kept to seaportsbecause he was a seaman in exile from the sea, and had Ability in the abstract,which is good for no other work but that of a water-clerk. He retreated in goodorder towards the rising sun, and the fact followed him casually but inevitably.Thus in the course of years he was known successively in Bombay, in Calcutta,in Rangoon, in Penang, in Batavia--and in each of these halting-places was justJim the water-clerk. Afterwards, when his keen perception of the Intolerabledrove him away for good from seaports and white men, even into the virginforest, the Malays of the jungle village, where he had elected to conceal hisdeplorable faculty, added a word to the monosyllable of his incognito. They calledhim Tuan Jim: as one might say--Lord Jim.

Originally he came from a parsonage. Many commanders of fine merchant-ships

come from these abodes of piety and peace. Jim's father possessed such certainknowledge of the Unknowable as made for the righteousness of people incottages without disturbing the ease of mind of those whom an unerringProvidence enables to live in mansions. The little church on a hill had the mossygreyness of a rock seen through a ragged screen of leaves. It had stood there forcenturies, but the trees around probably remembered the laying of the first stone.Below, the red front of the rectory gleamed with a warm tint in the midst of grass-plots, flower-beds, and fir-trees, with an orchard at the back, a paved stable-yardto the left, and the sloping glass of greenhouses tacked along a wall of bricks.The living had belonged to the family for generations; but Jim was one of fivesons, and when after a course of light holiday literature his vocation for the seahad declared itself, he was sent at once to a 'training-ship for officers of themercantile marine.'

He learned there a little trigonometry and how to cross top-gallant yards. He wasgenerally liked. He had the third place in navigation and pulled stroke in the firstcutter. Having a steady head with an excellent physique, he was very smart aloft.His station was in the fore-top, and often from there he looked down, with thecontempt of a man destined to shine in the midst of dangers, at the peacefulmultitude of roofs cut in two by the brown tide of the stream, while scattered onthe outskirts of the surrounding plain the factory chimneys rose perpendicularagainst a grimy sky, each slender like a pencil, and belching out smoke like avolcano. He could see the big ships departing, the broad-beamed ferriesconstantly on the move, the little boats floating far below his feet, with the hazysplendour of the sea in the distance, and the hope of a stirring life in the world ofadventure.

On the lower deck in the babel of two hundred voices he would forget himself,and beforehand live in his mind the sea-life of light literature. He saw himselfsaving people from sinking ships, cutting away masts in a hurricane, swimmingthrough a surf with a line; or as a lonely castaway, barefooted and half naked,walking on uncovered reefs in search of shellfish to stave off starvation. Heconfronted savages on tropical shores, quelled mutinies on the high seas, and ina small boat upon the ocean kept up the hearts of despairing men--always anexample of devotion to duty, and as unflinching as a hero in a book.'Something's up. Come along.'

He leaped to his feet. The boys were streaming up the ladders. Above could beheard a great scurrying about and shouting, and when he got through thehatchway he stood still--as if confounded.

It was the dusk of a winter's day. The gale had freshened since noon, stoppingthe traffic on the river, and now blew with the strength of a hurricane in fitfulbursts that boomed like salvoes of great guns firing over the ocean. The rainslanted in sheets that flicked and subsided, and between whiles Jim hadthreatening glimpses of the tumbling tide, the small craft jumbled and tossingalong the shore, the motionless buildings in the driving mist, the broad ferry-boats pitching ponderously at anchor, the vast landing-stages heaving up anddown and smothered in sprays. The next gust seemed to blow all this away. Theair was full of flying water. There was a fierce purpose in the gale, a furiousearnestness in the screech of the wind, in the brutal tumult of earth and sky, thatseemed directed at him, and made him hold his breath in awe. He stood still. Itseemed to him he was whirled around.

He was jostled. 'Man the cutter!' Boys rushed past him. A coaster running in forshelter had crashed through a schooner at anchor, and one of the ship'sinstructors had seen the accident. A mob of boys clambered on the rails,clustered round the davits. 'Collision. Just ahead of us. Mr. Symons saw it.' Apush made him stagger against the mizzen-mast, and he caught hold of a rope.The old training-ship chained to her moorings quivered all over, bowing gentlyhead to wind, and with her scanty rigging humming in a deep bass the breathlesssong of her youth at sea. 'Lower away!' He saw the boat, manned, drop swiftlybelow the rail, and rushed after her. He heard a splash. 'Let go; clear the falls!'He leaned over. The river alongside seethed in frothy streaks. The cutter couldbe seen in the falling darkness under the spell of tide and wind, that for amoment held her bound, and tossing abreast of the ship. A yelling voice in herreached him faintly: 'Keep stroke, you young whelps, if you want to saveanybody! Keep stroke!' And suddenly she lifted high her bow, and, leaping withraised oars over a wave, broke the spell cast upon her by the wind and tide.

Jim felt his shoulder gripped firmly. 'Too late, youngster.' The captain of the shiplaid a restraining hand on that boy, who seemed on the point of leapingoverboard, and Jim looked up with the pain of conscious defeat in his eyes. Thecaptain smiled sympathetically. 'Better luck next time. This will teach you to besmart.'

A shrill cheer greeted the cutter. She came dancing back half full of water, andwith two exhausted men washing about on her bottom boards. The tumult andthe menace of wind and sea now appeared very contemptible to Jim, increasingthe regret of his awe at their inefficient menace. Now he knew what to think of it.It seemed to him he cared nothing for the gale. He could affront greater perils. Hewould do so--better than anybody. Not a particle of fear was left. Nevertheless hebrooded apart that evening while the bowman of the cutter--a boy with a face likea girl's and big grey eyes--was the hero of the lower deck. Eager questionerscrowded round him. He narrated: 'I just saw his head bobbing, and I dashed myboat-hook in the water. It caught in his breeches and I nearly went overboard, asI thought I would, only old Symons let go the tiller and grabbed my legs--the boatnearly swamped. Old Symons is a fine old chap. I don't mind a bit him beinggrumpy with us. He swore at me all the time he held my leg, but that was only hisway of telling me to stick to the boat-hook. Old Symons is awfully excitable--isn'the? No--not the little fair chap--the other, the big one with a beard. When wepulled him in he groaned, "Oh, my leg! oh, my leg!" and turned up his eyes.Fancy such a big chap fainting like a girl. Would any of you fellows faint for a jabwith a boat-hook?--I wouldn't. It went into his leg so far.' He showed the boat-hook, which he had carried below for the purpose, and produced a sensation.'No, silly! It was not his flesh that held him--his breeches did. Lots of blood, ofcourse.'

Jim thought it a pitiful display of vanity. The gale had ministered to a heroism asspurious as its own pretence of terror. He felt angry with the brutal tumult of earthand sky for taking him unawares and checking unfairly a generous readiness fornarrow escapes. Otherwise he was rather glad he had not gone into the cutter,since a lower achievement had served the turn. He had enlarged his knowledgemore than those who had done the work. When all men flinched, then--he feltsure--he alone would know how to deal with the spurious menace of wind andseas. He knew what to think of it. Seen dispassionately, it seemed contemptible.He could detect no trace of emotion in himself, and the final effect of a staggeringevent was that, unnoticed and apart from the noisy crowd of boys, he exultedwith fresh certitude in his avidity for adventure, and in a sense of many-sidedcourage. Chapter 2

After two years of training he went to sea, and entering the regions so well knownto his imagination, found them strangely barren of adventure. He made manyvoyages. He knew the magic monotony of existence between sky and water: hehad to bear the criticism of men, the exactions of the sea, and the prosaicseverity of the daily task that gives bread--but whose only reward is in the perfectlove of the work. This reward eluded him. Yet he could not go back, becausethere is nothing more enticing, disenchanting, and enslaving than the life at sea.Besides, his prospects were good. He was gentlemanly, steady, tractable, with athorough knowledge of his duties; and in time, when yet very young, he becamechief mate of a fine ship, without ever having been tested by those events of thesea that show in the light of day the inner worth of a man, the edge of his temper,and the fibre of his stuff; that reveal the quality of his resistance and the secrettruth of his pretences, not only to others but also to himself.

Only once in all that time he had again a glimpse of the earnestness in the angerof the sea. That truth is not so often made apparent as people might think. Thereare many shades in the danger of adventures and gales, and it is only now andthen that there appears on the face of facts a sinister violence of intention--thatindefinable something which forces it upon the mind and the heart of a man, thatthis complication of accidents or these elemental furies are coming at him with apurpose of malice, with a strength beyond control, with an unbridled cruelty thatmeans to tear out of him his hope and his fear, the pain of his fatigue and hislonging for rest: which means to smash, to destroy, to annihilate all he has seen,known, loved, enjoyed, or hated; all that is priceless and necessary-- thesunshine, the memories, the future; which means to sweep the whole preciousworld utterly away from his sight by the simple and appalling act of taking his life.

Jim, disabled by a falling spar at the beginning of a week of which his Scottishcaptain used to say afterwards, 'Man! it's a pairfect meeracle to me how she livedthrough it!' spent many days stretched on his back, dazed, battered, hopeless,and tormented as if at the bottom of an abyss of unrest. He did not care what theend would be, and in his lucid moments overvalued his indifference. The danger,when not seen, has the imperfect vagueness of human thought. The fear growsshadowy; and Imagination, the enemy of men, the father of all terrors,unstimulated, sinks to rest in the dullness of exhausted emotion. Jim saw nothingbut the disorder of his tossed cabin. He lay there battened down in the midst of asmall devastation, and felt secretly glad he had not to go on deck. But now andagain an uncontrollable rush of anguish would grip him bodily, make him gaspand writhe under the blankets, and then the unintelligent brutality of an existenceliable to the agony of such sensations filled him with a despairing desire toescape at any cost. Then fine weather returned, and he thought no more about It.His lameness, however, persisted, and when the ship arrived at an Eastern porthe had to go to the hospital. His recovery was slow, and he was left behind.

There were only two other patients in the white men's ward: the purser of agunboat, who had broken his leg falling down a hatchway; and a kind of railwaycontractor from a neighbouring province, afflicted by some mysterious tropicaldisease, who held the doctor for an ass, and indulged in secret debaucheries ofpatent medicine which his Tamil servant used to smuggle in with unwearieddevotion. They told each other the story of their lives, played cards a little, or,yawning and in pyjamas, lounged through the day in easy-chairs without saying aword. The hospital stood on a hill, and a gentle breeze entering through thewindows, always flung wide open, brought into the bare room the softness of thesky, the languor of the earth, the bewitching breath of the Eastern waters. Therewere perfumes in it, suggestions of infinite repose, the gift of endless dreams.Jim looked every day over the thickets of gardens, beyond the roofs of the town,over the fronds of palms growing on the shore, at that roadstead which is athoroughfare to the East,--at the roadstead dotted by garlanded islets, lighted byfestal sunshine, its ships like toys, its brilliant activity resembling a holidaypageant, with the eternal serenity of the Eastern sky overhead and the smilingpeace of the Eastern seas possessing the space as far as the horizon.

Directly he could walk without a stick, he descended into the town to look forsome opportunity to get home. Nothing offered just then, and, while waiting, heassociated naturally with the men of his calling in the port. These were of twokinds. Some, very few and seen there but seldom, led mysterious lives, hadpreserved an undefaced energy with the temper of buccaneers and the eyes ofdreamers. They appeared to live in a crazy maze of plans, hopes, dangers,enterprises, ahead of civilisation, in the dark places of the sea; and their deathwas the only event of their fantastic existence that seemed to have a reasonablecertitude of achievement. The majority were men who, like himself, thrown thereby some accident, had remained as officers of country ships. They had now ahorror of the home service, with its harder conditions, severer view of duty, andthe hazard of stormy oceans. They were attuned to the eternal peace of Easternsky and sea. They loved short passages, good deck-chairs, large native crews,and the distinction of being white. They shuddered at the thought of hard work,and led precariously easy lives, always on the verge of dismissal, always on theverge of engagement, serving Chinamen, Arabs, half-castes--would have servedthe devil himself had he made it easy enough. They talked everlastingly of turnsof luck: how So-and-so got charge of a boat on the coast of China--a soft thing;how this one had an easy billet in Japan somewhere, and that one was doingwell in the Siamese navy; and in all they said--in their actions, in their looks, intheir persons--could be detected the soft spot, the place of decay, thedetermination to lounge safely through existence.

To Jim that gossiping crowd, viewed as seamen, seemed at first more

unsubstantial than so many shadows. But at length he found a fascination in thesight of those men, in their appearance of doing so well on such a smallallowance of danger and toil. In time, beside the original disdain there grew upslowly another sentiment; and suddenly, giving up the idea of going home, hetook a berth as chief mate of the Patna.

The Patna was a local steamer as old as the hills, lean like a greyhound, andeaten up with rust worse than a condemned water-tank. She was owned by aChinaman, chartered by an Arab, and commanded by a sort of renegade NewSouth Wales German, very anxious to curse publicly his native country, but who,apparently on the strength of Bismarck's victorious policy, brutalised all those hewas not afraid of, and wore a 'blood-and-iron' air,' combined with a purple noseand a red moustache. After she had been painted outside and whitewashedinside, eight hundred pilgrims (more or less) were driven on board of her as shelay with steam up alongside a wooden jetty.

They streamed aboard over three gangways, they streamed in urged by faith andthe hope of paradise, they streamed in with a continuous tramp and shuffle ofbare feet, without a word, a murmur, or a look back; and when clear of confiningrails spread on all sides over the deck, flowed forward and aft, overflowed downthe yawning hatchways, filled the inner recesses of the ship--like water filling acistern, like water flowing into crevices and crannies, like water rising silentlyeven with the rim. Eight hundred men and women with faith and hopes, withaffections and memories, they had collected there, coming from north and southand from the outskirts of the East, after treading the jungle paths, descending therivers, coasting in praus along the shallows, crossing in small canoes from islandto island, passing through suffering, meeting strange sights, beset by strangefears, upheld by one desire. They came from solitary huts in the wilderness, frompopulous campongs, from villages by the sea. At the call of an idea they had lefttheir forests, their clearings, the protection of their rulers, their prosperity, theirpoverty, the surroundings of their youth and the graves of their fathers. Theycame covered with dust, with sweat, with grime, with rags--the strong men at thehead of family parties, the lean old men pressing forward without hope of return;young boys with fearless eyes glancing curiously, shy little girls with tumbled longhair; the timid women muffled up and clasping to their breasts, wrapped in looseends of soiled head-cloths, their sleeping babies, the unconscious pilgrims of anexacting belief.

'Look at dese cattle,' said the German skipper to his new chief mate.

An Arab, the leader of that pious voyage, came last. He walked slowly aboard,handsome and grave in his white gown and large turban. A string of servantsfollowed, loaded with his luggage; the Patna cast off and backed away from thewharf.

She was headed between two small islets, crossed obliquely the anchoring-ground of sailing-ships, swung through half a circle in the shadow of a hill, thenranged close to a ledge of foaming reefs. The Arab, standing up aft, recited aloudthe prayer of travellers by sea. He invoked the favour of the Most High upon thatjourney, implored His blessing on men's toil and on the secret purposes of theirhearts; the steamer pounded in the dusk the calm water of the Strait; and farastern of the pilgrim ship a screw-pile lighthouse, planted by unbelievers on atreacherous shoal, seemed to wink at her its eye of flame, as if in derision of hererrand of faith.

She cleared the Strait, crossed the bay, continued on her way through the 'One-degree' passage. She held on straight for the Red Sea under a serene sky, undera sky scorching and unclouded, enveloped in a fulgor of sunshine that killed allthought, oppressed the heart, withered all impulses of strength and energy. Andunder the sinister splendour of that sky the sea, blue and profound, remainedstill, without a stir, without a ripple, without a wrinkle-- viscous, stagnant, dead.The Patna, with a slight hiss, passed over that plain, luminous and smooth,unrolled a black ribbon of smoke across the sky, left behind her on the water awhite ribbon of foam that vanished at once, like the phantom of a track drawnupon a lifeless sea by the phantom of a steamer.

Every morning the sun, as if keeping pace in his revolutions with the progress ofthe pilgrimage, emerged with a silent burst of light exactly at the same distanceastern of the ship, caught up with her at noon, pouring the concentrated fire of hisrays on the pious purposes of the men, glided past on his descent, and sankmysteriously into the sea evening after evening, preserving the same distanceahead of her advancing bows. The five whites on board lived amidships, isolatedfrom the human cargo. The awnings covered the deck with a white roof fromstem to stern, and a faint hum, a low murmur of sad voices, alone revealed thepresence of a crowd of people upon the great blaze of the ocean. Such were thedays, still, hot, heavy, disappearing one by one into the past, as if falling into anabyss for ever open in the wake of the ship; and the ship, lonely under a wisp ofsmoke, held on her steadfast way black and smouldering in a luminousimmensity, as if scorched by a flame flicked at her from a heaven without pity.

The nights descended on her like a benediction.

Chapter 3

A marvellous stillness pervaded the world, and the stars, together with theserenity of their rays, seemed to shed upon the earth the assurance ofeverlasting security. The young moon recurved, and shining low in the west, waslike a slender shaving thrown up from a bar of gold, and the Arabian Sea, smoothand cool to the eye like a sheet of ice, extended its perfect level to the perfectcircle of a dark horizon. The propeller turned without a check, as though its beathad been part of the scheme of a safe universe; and on each side of the Patnatwo deep folds of water, permanent and sombre on the unwrinkled shimmer,enclosed within their straight and diverging ridges a few white swirls of foambursting in a low hiss, a few wavelets, a few ripples, a few undulations that, leftbehind, agitated the surface of the sea for an instant after the passage of theship, subsided splashing gently, calmed down at last into the circular stillness ofwater and sky with the black speck of the moving hull remaining everlastingly inits centre.

Jim on the bridge was penetrated by the great certitude of unbounded safety andpeace that could be read on the silent aspect of nature like the certitude offostering love upon the placid tenderness of a mother's face. Below the roof ofawnings, surrendered to the wisdom of white men and to their courage, trustingthe power of their unbelief and the iron shell of their fire-ship, the pilgrims of anexacting faith slept on mats, on blankets, on bare planks, on every deck, in all thedark corners, wrapped in dyed cloths, muffled in soiled rags, with their headsresting on small bundles, with their faces pressed to bent forearms: the men, thewomen, the children; the old with the young, the decrepit with the lusty--all equalbefore sleep, death's brother.

A draught of air, fanned from forward by the speed of the ship, passed steadilythrough the long gloom between the high bulwarks, swept over the rows of pronebodies; a few dim flames in globe-lamps were hung short here and there underthe ridge-poles, and in the blurred circles of light thrown down and tremblingslightly to the unceasing vibration of the ship appeared a chin upturned, twoclosed eyelids, a dark hand with silver rings, a meagre limb draped in a torncovering, a head bent back, a naked foot, a throat bared and stretched as ifoffering itself to the knife. The well-to-do had made for their families shelters withheavy boxes and dusty mats; the poor reposed side by side with all they had onearth tied up in a rag under their heads; the lone old men slept, with drawn-uplegs, upon their prayer-carpets, with their hands over their ears and one elbow oneach side of the face; a father, his shoulders up and his knees under hisforehead, dozed dejectedly by a boy who slept on his back with tousled hair andone arm commandingly extended; a woman covered from head to foot, like acorpse, with a piece of white sheeting, had a naked child in the hollow of eacharm; the Arab's belongings, piled right aft, made a heavy mound of brokenoutlines, with a cargo-lamp swung above, and a great confusion of vague formsbehind: gleams of paunchy brass pots, the foot-rest of a deck-chair, blades ofspears, the straight scabbard of an old sword leaning against a heap of pillows,the spout of a tin coffee-pot. The patent log on the taffrail periodically rang asingle tinkling stroke for every mile traversed on an errand of faith. Above themass of sleepers a faint and patient sigh at times floated, the exhalation of atroubled dream; and short metallic clangs bursting out suddenly in the depths ofthe ship, the harsh scrape of a shovel, the violent slam of a furnace-door,exploded brutally, as if the men handling the mysterious things below had theirbreasts full of fierce anger: while the slim high hull of the steamer went on evenlyahead, without a sway of her bare masts, cleaving continuously the great calm ofthe waters under the inaccessible serenity of the sky.

Jim paced athwart, and his footsteps in the vast silence were loud to his ownears, as if echoed by the watchful stars: his eyes, roaming about the line of thehorizon, seemed to gaze hungrily into the unattainable, and did not see theshadow of the coming event. The only shadow on the sea was the shadow of theblack smoke pouring heavily from the funnel its immense streamer, whose endwas constantly dissolving in the air. Two Malays, silent and almost motionless,steered, one on each side of the wheel, whose brass rim shone fragmentarily inthe oval of light thrown out by the binnacle. Now and then a hand, with blackfingers alternately letting go and catching hold of revolving spokes, appeared inthe illumined part; the links of wheel-chains ground heavily in the grooves of thebarrel. Jim would glance at the compass, would glance around the unattainablehorizon, would stretch himself till his joints cracked, with a leisurely twist of thebody, in the very excess of well-being; and, as if made audacious by theinvincible aspect of the peace, he felt he cared for nothing that could happen tohim to the end of his days. From time to time he glanced idly at a chart peggedout with four drawing-pins on a low three-legged table abaft the steering-gearcase. The sheet of paper portraying the depths of the sea presented a shinysurface under the light of a bull's-eye lamp lashed to a stanchion, a surface aslevel and smooth as the glimmering surface of the waters. Parallel rulers with apair of dividers reposed on it; the ship's position at last noon was marked with asmall black cross, and the straight pencil-line drawn firmly as far as Perim figuredthe course of the ship--the path of souls towards the holy place, the promise ofsalvation, the reward of eternal life--while the pencil with its sharp end touchingthe Somali coast lay round and still like a naked ship's spar floating in the pool ofa sheltered dock. 'How steady she goes,' thought Jim with wonder, withsomething like gratitude for this high peace of sea and sky. At such times histhoughts would be full of valorous deeds: he loved these dreams and thesuccess of his imaginary achievements. They were the best parts of life, itssecret truth, its hidden reality. They had a gorgeous virility, the charm ofvagueness, they passed before him with an heroic tread; they carried his soulaway with them and made it drunk with the divine philtre of an unboundedconfidence in itself. There was nothing he could not face. He was so pleased withthe idea that he smiled, keeping perfunctorily his eyes ahead; and when hehappened to glance back he saw the white streak of the wake drawn as straightby the ship's keel upon the sea as the black line drawn by the pencil upon thechart.

The ash-buckets racketed, clanking up and down the stoke-hold ventilators, andthis tin-pot clatter warned him the end of his watch was near. He sighed withcontent, with regret as well at having to part from that serenity which fostered theadventurous freedom of his thoughts. He was a little sleepy too, and felt apleasurable languor running through every limb as though all the blood in hisbody had turned to warm milk. His skipper had come up noiselessly, in pyjamasand with his sleeping-jacket flung wide open. Red of face, only half awake, theleft eye partly closed, the right staring stupid and glassy, he hung his big headover the chart and scratched his ribs sleepily. There was something obscene inthe sight of his naked flesh. His bared breast glistened soft and greasy as thoughhe had sweated out his fat in his sleep. He pronounced a professional remark ina voice harsh and dead, resembling the rasping sound of a wood-file on the edgeof a plank; the fold of his double chin hung like a bag triced up close under thehinge of his jaw. Jim started, and his answer was full of deference; but the odiousand fleshy figure, as though seen for the first time in a revealing moment, fixeditself in his memory for ever as the incarnation of everything vile and base thatlurks in the world we love: in our own hearts we trust for our salvation, in the menthat surround us, in the sights that fill our eyes, in the sounds that fill our ears,and in the air that fills our lungs.

The thin gold shaving of the moon floating slowly downwards had lost itself onthe darkened surface of the waters, and the eternity beyond the sky seemed tocome down nearer to the earth, with the augmented glitter of the stars, with themore profound sombreness in the lustre of the half-transparent dome coveringthe flat disc of an opaque sea. The ship moved so smoothly that her onwardmotion was imperceptible to the senses of men, as though she had been acrowded planet speeding through the dark spaces of ether behind the swarm ofsuns, in the appalling and calm solitudes awaiting the breath of future creations.'Hot is no name for it down below,' said a voice.

Jim smiled without looking round. The skipper presented an unmoved breadth ofback: it was the renegade's trick to appear pointedly unaware of your existenceunless it suited his purpose to turn at you with a devouring glare before he letloose a torrent of foamy, abusive jargon that came like a gush from a sewer. Nowhe emitted only a sulky grunt; the second engineer at the head of the bridge-ladder, kneading with damp palms a dirty sweat-rag, unabashed, continued thetale of his complaints. The sailors had a good time of it up here, and what wasthe use of them in the world he would be blowed if he could see. The poor devilsof engineers had to get the ship along anyhow, and they could very well do therest too; by gosh they--'Shut up!' growled the German stolidly. 'Oh yes! Shut up--and when anything goes wrong you fly to us, don't you?' went on the other. Hewas more than half cooked, he expected; but anyway, now, he did not mind howmuch he sinned, because these last three days he had passed through a finecourse of training for the place where the bad boys go when they die--b'gosh, hehad--besides being made jolly well deaf by the blasted racket below. The durned,compound, surface-condensing, rotten scrap-heap rattled and banged downthere like an old deck-winch, only more so; and what made him risk his life everynight and day that God made amongst the refuse of a breaking-up yard flyinground at fifty-seven revolutions, was more than he could tell. He must have beenborn reckless, b'gosh. He . . .

'Where did you get drink?' inquired the German, very savage; but motionless inthe light of the binnacle, like a clumsy effigy of a man cut out of a block of fat. Jimwent on smiling at the retreating horizon; his heart was full of generous impulses,and his thought was contemplating his own superiority. 'Drink!' repeated theengineer with amiable scorn: he was hanging on with both hands to the rail, ashadowy figure with flexible legs. 'Not from you, captain. You're far too mean,b'gosh. You would let a good man die sooner than give him a drop of schnapps.That's what you Germans call economy. Penny wise, pound foolish.' He becamesentimental. The chief had given him a four-finger nip about ten o'clock--'onlyone, s'elp me!'--good old chief; but as to getting the old fraud out of his bunk--afive-ton crane couldn't do it. Not it. Not to-night anyhow. He was sleeping sweetlylike a little child, with a bottle of prime brandy under his pillow. From the thickthroat of the commander of the Patna came a low rumble, on which the sound ofthe word schwein fluttered high and low like a capricious feather in a faint stir ofair. He and the chief engineer had been cronies for a good few years--serving thesame jovial, crafty, old Chinaman, with horn-rimmed goggles and strings of redsilk plaited into the venerable grey hairs of his pigtail. The quay-side opinion inthe Patna's home-port was that these two in the way of brazen peculation 'haddone together pretty well everything you can think of.' Outwardly they were badlymatched: one dull-eyed, malevolent, and of soft fleshy curves; the other lean, allhollows, with a head long and bony like the head of an old horse, with sunkencheeks, with sunken temples, with an indifferent glazed glance of sunken eyes.

He had been stranded out East somewhere--in Canton, in Shanghai, or perhaps

in Yokohama; he probably did not care to remember himself the exact locality,nor yet the cause of his shipwreck. He had been, in mercy to his youth, kickedquietly out of his ship twenty years ago or more, and it might have been so muchworse for him that the memory of the episode had in it hardly a trace ofmisfortune. Then, steam navigation expanding in these seas and men of his craftbeing scarce at first, he had 'got on' after a sort. He was eager to let strangersknow in a dismal mumble that he was 'an old stager out here.' When he moved, askeleton seemed to sway loose in his clothes; his walk was mere wandering, andhe was given to wander thus around the engine-room skylight, smoking, withoutrelish, doctored tobacco in a brass bowl at the end of a cherrywood stem fourfeet long, with the imbecile gravity of a thinker evolving a system of philosophyfrom the hazy glimpse of a truth. He was usually anything but free with his privatestore of liquor; but on that night he had departed from his principles, so that hissecond, a weak-headed child of Wapping, what with the unexpectedness of thetreat and the strength of the stuff, had become very happy, cheeky, and talkative.The fury of the New South Wales German was extreme; he puffed like anexhaust-pipe, and Jim, faintly amused by the scene, was impatient for the timewhen he could get below: the last ten minutes of the watch were irritating like agun that hangs fire; those men did not belong to the world of heroic adventure;they weren't bad chaps though. Even the skipper himself . . . His gorge rose atthe mass of panting flesh from which issued gurgling mutters, a cloudy trickle offilthy expressions; but he was too pleasurably languid to dislike actively this orany other thing. The quality of these men did not matter; he rubbed shoulderswith them, but they could not touch him; he shared the air they breathed, but hewas different. . . . Would the skipper go for the engineer? . . . The life was easyand he was too sure of himself--too sure of himself to . . . The line dividing hismeditation from a surreptitious doze on his feet was thinner than a thread in aspider's web.

The second engineer was coming by easy transitions to the consideration of hisfinances and of his courage.

'Who's drunk? I? No, no, captain! That won't do. You ought to know by this timethe chief ain't free-hearted enough to make a sparrow drunk, b'gosh. I've neverbeen the worse for liquor in my life; the stuff ain't made yet that would make medrunk. I could drink liquid fire against your whisky peg for peg, b'gosh, and keepas cool as a cucumber. If I thought I was drunk I would jump overboard--do awaywith myself, b'gosh. I would! Straight! And I won't go off the bridge. Where do youexpect me to take the air on a night like this, eh? On deck amongst that vermindown there? Likely--ain't it! And I am not afraid of anything you can do.'

The German lifted two heavy fists to heaven and shook them a little without aword.

'I don't know what fear is,' pursued the engineer, with the enthusiasm of sincereconviction. 'I am not afraid of doing all the bloomin' work in this rotten hooker,b'gosh! And a jolly good thing for you that there are some of us about the worldthat aren't afraid of their lives, or where would you be--you and this old thing herewith her plates like brown paper--brown paper, s'elp me? It's all very fine for you--you get a power of pieces out of her one way and another; but what about me--what do I get? A measly hundred and fifty dollars a month and find yourself. Iwish to ask you respectfully--respectfully, mind--who wouldn't chuck a dratted joblike this? 'Tain't safe, s'elp me, it ain't! Only I am one of them fearless fellows . . .'

He let go the rail and made ample gestures as if demonstrating in the air theshape and extent of his valour; his thin voice darted in prolonged squeaks uponthe sea, he tiptoed back and forth for the better emphasis of utterance, andsuddenly pitched down head-first as though he had been clubbed from behind.He said 'Damn!' as he tumbled; an instant of silence followed upon hisscreeching: Jim and the skipper staggered forward by common accord, andcatching themselves up, stood very stiff and still gazing, amazed, at theundisturbed level of the sea. Then they looked upwards at the stars.

What had happened? The wheezy thump of the engines went on. Had the earthbeen checked in her course? They could not understand; and suddenly the calmsea, the sky without a cloud, appeared formidably insecure in their immobility, asif poised on the brow of yawning destruction. The engineer rebounded verticallyfull length and collapsed again into a vague heap. This heap said 'What's that?' inthe muffled accents of profound grief. A faint noise as of thunder, of thunderinfinitely remote, less than a sound, hardly more than a vibration, passed slowly,and the ship quivered in response, as if the thunder had growled deep down inthe water. The eyes of the two Malays at the wheel glittered towards the whitemen, but their dark hands remained closed on the spokes. The sharp hull drivingon its way seemed to rise a few inches in succession through its whole length, asthough it had become pliable, and settled down again rigidly to its work ofcleaving the smooth surface of the sea. Its quivering stopped, and the faint noiseof thunder ceased all at once, as though the ship had steamed across a narrowbelt of vibrating water and of humming air. Chapter 4

A month or so afterwards, when Jim, in answer to pointed questions, tried to tell

honestly the truth of this experience, he said, speaking of the ship: 'She wentover whatever it was as easy as a snake crawling over a stick.' The illustrationwas good: the questions were aiming at facts, and the official Inquiry was beingheld in the police court of an Eastern port. He stood elevated in the witness-box,with burning cheeks in a cool lofty room: the big framework of punkahs movedgently to and fro high above his head, and from below many eyes were looking athim out of dark faces, out of white faces, out of red faces, out of faces attentive,spellbound, as if all these people sitting in orderly rows upon narrow bencheshad been enslaved by the fascination of his voice. It was very loud, it rangstartling in his own ears, it was the only sound audible in the world, for the terriblydistinct questions that extorted his answers seemed to shape themselves inanguish and pain within his breast,-- came to him poignant and silent like theterrible questioning of one's conscience. Outside the court the sun blazed--withinwas the wind of great punkahs that made you shiver, the shame that made youburn, the attentive eyes whose glance stabbed. The face of the presidingmagistrate, clean shaved and impassible, looked at him deadly pale between thered faces of the two nautical assessors. The light of a broad window under theceiling fell from above on the heads and shoulders of the three men, and theywere fiercely distinct in the half-light of the big court-room where the audienceseemed composed of staring shadows. They wanted facts. Facts! Theydemanded facts from him, as if facts could explain anything!

'After you had concluded you had collided with something floating awash, say awater-logged wreck, you were ordered by your captain to go forward andascertain if there was any damage done. Did you think it likely from the force ofthe blow?' asked the assessor sitting to the left. He had a thin horseshoe beard,salient cheek-bones, and with both elbows on the desk clasped his rugged handsbefore his face, looking at Jim with thoughtful blue eyes; the other, a heavy,scornful man, thrown back in his seat, his left arm extended full length, drummeddelicately with his finger-tips on a blotting-pad: in the middle the magistrateupright in the roomy arm-chair, his head inclined slightly on the shoulder, had hisarms crossed on his breast and a few flowers in a glass vase by the side of hisinkstand.

'I did not,' said Jim. 'I was told to call no one and to make no noise for fear ofcreating a panic. I thought the precaution reasonable. I took one of the lamps thatwere hung under the awnings and went forward. After opening the forepeakhatch I heard splashing in there. I lowered then the lamp the whole drift of itslanyard, and saw that the forepeak was more than half full of water already. Iknew then there must be a big hole below the water-line.' He paused.'Yes,' said the big assessor, with a dreamy smile at the blotting-pad; his fingersplayed incessantly, touching the paper without noise.

'I did not think of danger just then. I might have been a little startled: all thishappened in such a quiet way and so very suddenly. I knew there was no otherbulkhead in the ship but the collision bulkhead separating the forepeak from theforehold. I went back to tell the captain. I came upon the second engineer gettingup at the foot of the bridge-ladder: he seemed dazed, and told me he thought hisleft arm was broken; he had slipped on the top step when getting down while Iwas forward. He exclaimed, "My God! That rotten bulkhead'll give way in aminute, and the damned thing will go down under us like a lump of lead." Hepushed me away with his right arm and ran before me up the ladder, shouting ashe climbed. His left arm hung by his side. I followed up in time to see the captainrush at him and knock him down flat on his back. He did not strike him again: hestood bending over him and speaking angrily but quite low. I fancy he was askinghim why the devil he didn't go and stop the engines, instead of making a rowabout it on deck. I heard him say, "Get up! Run! fly!" He swore also. Theengineer slid down the starboard ladder and bolted round the skylight to theengine-room companion which was on the port side. He moaned as he ran. . . .'

He spoke slowly; he remembered swiftly and with extreme vividness; he could

have reproduced like an echo the moaning of the engineer for the betterinformation of these men who wanted facts. After his first feeling of revolt he hadcome round to the view that only a meticulous precision of statement would bringout the true horror behind the appalling face of things. The facts those men wereso eager to know had been visible, tangible, open to the senses, occupying theirplace in space and time, requiring for their existence a fourteen-hundred-tonsteamer and twenty-seven minutes by the watch; they made a whole that hadfeatures, shades of expression, a complicated aspect that could be rememberedby the eye, and something else besides, something invisible, a directing spirit ofperdition that dwelt within, like a malevolent soul in a detestable body. He wasanxious to make this clear. This had not been a common affair, everything in ithad been of the utmost importance, and fortunately he remembered everything.He wanted to go on talking for truth's sake, perhaps for his own sake also; andwhile his utterance was deliberate, his mind positively flew round and round theserried circle of facts that had surged up all about him to cut him off from the restof his kind: it was like a creature that, finding itself imprisoned within an enclosureof high stakes, dashes round and round, distracted in the night, trying to find aweak spot, a crevice, a place to scale, some opening through which it maysqueeze itself and escape. This awful activity of mind made him hesitate at timesin his speech. . . .

'The captain kept on moving here and there on the bridge; he seemed calmenough, only he stumbled several times; and once as I stood speaking to him hewalked right into me as though he had been stone-blind. He made no definiteanswer to what I had to tell. He mumbled to himself; all I heard of it were a fewwords that sounded like "confounded steam!" and "infernal steam!"--somethingabout steam. I thought . . .'

He was becoming irrelevant; a question to the point cut short his speech, like apang of pain, and he felt extremely discouraged and weary. He was coming tothat, he was coming to that--and now, checked brutally, he had to answer by yesor no. He answered truthfully by a curt 'Yes, I did'; and fair of face, big of frame,with young, gloomy eyes, he held his shoulders upright above the box while hissoul writhed within him. He was made to answer another question so much to thepoint and so useless, then waited again. His mouth was tastelessly dry, asthough he had been eating dust, then salt and bitter as after a drink of sea-water.He wiped his damp forehead, passed his tongue over parched lips, felt a shiverrun down his back. The big assessor had dropped his eyelids, and drummed onwithout a sound, careless and mournful; the eyes of the other above thesunburnt, clasped fingers seemed to glow with kindliness; the magistrate hadswayed forward; his pale face hovered near the flowers, and then droppingsideways over the arm of his chair, he rested his temple in the palm of his hand.The wind of the punkahs eddied down on the heads, on the dark-faced nativeswound about in voluminous draperies, on the Europeans sitting together very hotand in drill suits that seemed to fit them as close as their skins, and holding theirround pith hats on their knees; while gliding along the walls the court peons,buttoned tight in long white coats, flitted rapidly to and fro, running on bare toes,red-sashed, red turban on head, as noiseless as ghosts, and on the alert like somany retrievers.

Jim's eyes, wandering in the intervals of his answers, rested upon a white manwho sat apart from the others, with his face worn and clouded, but with quieteyes that glanced straight, interested and clear. Jim answered another questionand was tempted to cry out, 'What's the good of this! what's the good!' He tappedwith his foot slightly, bit his lip, and looked away over the heads. He met the eyesof the white man. The glance directed at him was not the fascinated stare of theothers. It was an act of intelligent volition. Jim between two questions forgothimself so far as to find leisure for a thought. This fellow--ran the thought--looksat me as though he could see somebody or something past my shoulder. He hadcome across that man before--in the street perhaps. He was positive he hadnever spoken to him. For days, for many days, he had spoken to no one, but hadheld silent, incoherent, and endless converse with himself, like a prisoner alonein his cell or like a wayfarer lost in a wilderness. At present he was answeringquestions that did not matter though they had a purpose, but he doubted whetherhe would ever again speak out as long as he lived. The sound of his own truthfulstatements confirmed his deliberate opinion that speech was of no use to himany longer. That man there seemed to be aware of his hopeless difficulty. Jimlooked at him, then turned away resolutely, as after a final parting.

And later on, many times, in distant parts of the world, Marlow showed himselfwilling to remember Jim, to remember him at length, in detail and audibly.Perhaps it would be after dinner, on a verandah draped in motionless foliage andcrowned with flowers, in the deep dusk speckled by fiery cigar-ends. Theelongated bulk of each cane-chair harboured a silent listener. Now and then asmall red glow would move abruptly, and expanding light up the fingers of alanguid hand, part of a face in profound repose, or flash a crimson gleam into apair of pensive eyes overshadowed by a fragment of an unruffled forehead; andwith the very first word uttered Marlow's body, extended at rest in the seat, wouldbecome very still, as though his spirit had winged its way back into the lapse oftime and were speaking through his lips from the past. Chapter 5

'Oh yes. I attended the inquiry,' he would say, 'and to this day I haven't left offwondering why I went. I am willing to believe each of us has a guardian angel, ifyou fellows will concede to me that each of us has a familiar devil as well. I wantyou to own up, because I don't like to feel exceptional in any way, and I know Ihave him-- the devil, I mean. I haven't seen him, of course, but I go uponcircumstantial evidence. He is there right enough, and, being malicious, he letsme in for that kind of thing. What kind of thing, you ask? Why, the inquiry thing,the yellow-dog thing--you wouldn't think a mangy, native tyke would be allowed totrip up people in the verandah of a magistrate's court, would you?--the kind ofthing that by devious, unexpected, truly diabolical ways causes me to run upagainst men with soft spots, with hard spots, with hidden plague spots, by Jove!and loosens their tongues at the sight of me for their infernal confidences; asthough, forsooth, I had no confidences to make to myself, as though--God helpme!--I didn't have enough confidential information about myself to harrow my ownsoul till the end of my appointed time. And what I have done to be thus favoured Iwant to know. I declare I am as full of my own concerns as the next man, and Ihave as much memory as the average pilgrim in this valley, so you see I am notparticularly fit to be a receptacle of confessions. Then why? Can't tell--unless itbe to make time pass away after dinner. Charley, my dear chap, your dinner wasextremely good, and in consequence these men here look upon a quiet rubber asa tumultuous occupation. They wallow in your good chairs and think tothemselves, "Hang exertion. Let that Marlow talk."

'Talk? So be it. And it's easy enough to talk of Master Jim, after a good spread,two hundred feet above the sea-level, with a box of decent cigars handy, on ablessed evening of freshness and starlight that would make the best of us forgetwe are only on sufferance here and got to pick our way in cross lights, watchingevery precious minute and every irremediable step, trusting we shall manage yetto go out decently in the end--but not so sure of it after all--and with dashed littlehelp to expect from those we touch elbows with right and left. Of course there aremen here and there to whom the whole of life is like an after-dinner hour with acigar; easy, pleasant, empty, perhaps enlivened by some fable of strife to beforgotten before the end is told--before the end is told--even if there happens tobe any end to it.

'My eyes met his for the first time at that inquiry. You must know that everybodyconnected in any way with the sea was there, because the affair had beennotorious for days, ever since that mysterious cable message came from Aden tostart us all cackling. I say mysterious, because it was so in a sense though itcontained a naked fact, about as naked and ugly as a fact can well be. Thewhole waterside talked of nothing else. First thing in the morning as I wasdressing in my state-room, I would hear through the bulkhead my Parsee Dubashjabbering about the Patna with the steward, while he drank a cup of tea, byfavour, in the pantry. No sooner on shore I would meet some acquaintance, andthe first remark would be, "Did you ever hear of anything to beat this?" andaccording to his kind the man would smile cynically, or look sad, or let out aswear or two. Complete strangers would accost each other familiarly, just for thesake of easing their minds on the subject: every confounded loafer in the towncame in for a harvest of drinks over this affair: you heard of it in the harbouroffice, at every ship-broker's, at your agent's, from whites, from natives, fromhalf-castes, from the very boatmen squatting half naked on the stone steps asyou went up--by Jove! There was some indignation, not a few jokes, and no endof discussions as to what had become of them, you know. This went on for acouple of weeks or more, and the opinion that whatever was mysterious in thisaffair would turn out to be tragic as well, began to prevail, when one fine morning,as I was standing in the shade by the steps of the harbour office, I perceived fourmen walking towards me along the quay. I wondered for a while where that queerlot had sprung from, and suddenly, I may say, I shouted to myself, "Here theyare!"

'There they were, sure enough, three of them as large as life, and one muchlarger of girth than any living man has a right to be, just landed with a goodbreakfast inside of them from an outward-bound Dale Line steamer that hadcome in about an hour after sunrise. There could be no mistake; I spotted thejolly skipper of the Patna at the first glance: the fattest man in the whole blessedtropical belt clear round that good old earth of ours. Moreover, nine months or sobefore, I had come across him in Samarang. His steamer was loading in theRoads, and he was abusing the tyrannical institutions of the German empire, andsoaking himself in beer all day long and day after day in De Jongh's back-shop,till De Jongh, who charged a guilder for every bottle without as much as thequiver of an eyelid, would beckon me aside, and, with his little leathery face allpuckered up, declare confidentially, "Business is business, but this man, captain,he make me very sick. Tfui!"

'I was looking at him from the shade. He was hurrying on a little in advance, andthe sunlight beating on him brought out his bulk in a startling way. He made methink of a trained baby elephant walking on hind-legs. He was extravagantlygorgeous too--got up in a soiled sleeping-suit, bright green and deep orangevertical stripes, with a pair of ragged straw slippers on his bare feet, andsomebody's cast-off pith hat, very dirty and two sizes too small for him, tied upwith a manilla rope-yarn on the top of his big head. You understand a man likethat hasn't the ghost of a chance when it comes to borrowing clothes. Very well.On he came in hot haste, without a look right or left, passed within three feet ofme, and in the innocence of his heart went on pelting upstairs into the harbouroffice to make his deposition, or report, or whatever you like to call it.

'It appears he addressed himself in the first instance to the principal shipping-master. Archie Ruthvel had just come in, and, as his story goes, was about tobegin his arduous day by giving a dressing-down to his chief clerk. Some of youmight have known him--an obliging little Portuguese half-caste with a miserablyskinny neck, and always on the hop to get something from the shipmasters in theway of eatables--a piece of salt pork, a bag of biscuits, a few potatoes, or whatnot. One voyage, I recollect, I tipped him a live sheep out of the remnant of mysea-stock: not that I wanted him to do anything for me--he couldn't, you know--but because his childlike belief in the sacred right to perquisites quite touched myheart. It was so strong as to be almost beautiful. The race--the two races rather--and the climate . . . However, never mind. I know where I have a friend for life.

'Well, Ruthvel says he was giving him a severe lecture--on official morality, Isuppose--when he heard a kind of subdued commotion at his back, and turninghis head he saw, in his own words, something round and enormous, resemblinga sixteen-hundred-weight sugar-hogshead wrapped in striped flannelette, up-ended in the middle of the large floor space in the office. He declares he was sotaken aback that for quite an appreciable time he did not realise the thing wasalive, and sat still wondering for what purpose and by what means that objecthad been transported in front of his desk. The archway from the ante-room wascrowded with punkah-pullers, sweepers, police peons, the coxswain and crew ofthe harbour steam-launch, all craning their necks and almost climbing on eachother's backs. Quite a riot. By that time the fellow had managed to tug and jerkhis hat clear of his head, and advanced with slight bows at Ruthvel, who told methe sight was so discomposing that for some time he listened, quite unable tomake out what that apparition wanted. It spoke in a voice harsh and lugubriousbut intrepid, and little by little it dawned upon Archie that this was a developmentof the Patna case. He says that as soon as he understood who it was before himhe felt quite unwell--Archie is so sympathetic and easily upset--but pulled himselftogether and shouted "Stop! I can't listen to you. You must go to the MasterAttendant. I can't possibly listen to you. Captain Elliot is the man you want to see.This way, this way." He jumped up, ran round that long counter, pulled, shoved:the other let him, surprised but obedient at first, and only at the door of theprivate office some sort of animal instinct made him hang back and snort like afrightened bullock. "Look here! what's up? Let go! Look here!" Archie flung openthe door without knocking. "The master of the Patna, sir," he shouts. "Go in,captain." He saw the old man lift his head from some writing so sharp that hisnose-nippers fell off, banged the door to, and fled to his desk, where he hadsome papers waiting for his signature: but he says the row that burst out in therewas so awful that he couldn't collect his senses sufficiently to remember thespelling of his own name. Archie's the most sensitive shipping-master in the twohemispheres. He declares he felt as though he had thrown a man to a hungrylion. No doubt the noise was great. I heard it down below, and I have everyreason to believe it was heard clear across the Esplanade as far as the band-stand. Old father Elliot had a great stock of words and could shout--and didn'tmind who he shouted at either. He would have shouted at the Viceroy himself. Ashe used to tell me: "I am as high as I can get; my pension is safe. I've a fewpounds laid by, and if they don't like my notions of duty I would just as soon gohome as not. I am an old man, and I have always spoken my mind. All I care fornow is to see my girls married before I die." He was a little crazy on that point.His three daughters were awfully nice, though they resembled him amazingly,and on the mornings he woke up with a gloomy view of their matrimonialprospects the office would read it in his eye and tremble, because, they said, hewas sure to have somebody for breakfast. However, that morning he did not eatthe renegade, but, if I may be allowed to carry on the metaphor, chewed him upvery small, so to speak, and--ah! ejected him again.

'Thus in a very few moments I saw his monstrous bulk descend in haste andstand still on the outer steps. He had stopped close to me for the purpose ofprofound meditation: his large purple cheeks quivered. He was biting his thumb,and after a while noticed me with a sidelong vexed look. The other three chapsthat had landed with him made a little group waiting at some distance. There wasa sallow-faced, mean little chap with his arm in a sling, and a long individual in ablue flannel coat, as dry as a chip and no stouter than a broomstick, withdrooping grey moustaches, who looked about him with an air of jaunty imbecility.The third was an upstanding, broad-shouldered youth, with his hands in hispockets, turning his back on the other two who appeared to be talking togetherearnestly. He stared across the empty Esplanade. A ramshackle gharry, all dustand venetian blinds, pulled up short opposite the group, and the driver, throwingup his right foot over his knee, gave himself up to the critical examination of histoes. The young chap, making no movement, not even stirring his head, juststared into the sunshine. This was my first view of Jim. He looked asunconcerned and unapproachable as only the young can look. There he stood,clean-limbed, clean-faced, firm on his feet, as promising a boy as the sun evershone on; and, looking at him, knowing all he knew and a little more too, I was asangry as though I had detected him trying to get something out of me by falsepretences. He had no business to look so sound. I thought to myself--well, if thissort can go wrong like that . . . and I felt as though I could fling down my hat anddance on it from sheer mortification, as I once saw the skipper of an Italianbarque do because his duffer of a mate got into a mess with his anchors whenmaking a flying moor in a roadstead full of ships. I asked myself, seeing himthere apparently so much at ease--is he silly? is he callous? He seemed ready tostart whistling a tune. And note, I did not care a rap about the behaviour of theother two. Their persons somehow fitted the tale that was public property, andwas going to be the subject of an official inquiry. "That old mad rogue upstairscalled me a hound," said the captain of the Patna. I can't tell whether herecognised me--I rather think he did; but at any rate our glances met. He glared--Ismiled; hound was the very mildest epithet that had reached me through theopen window. "Did he?" I said from some strange inability to hold my tongue. Henodded, bit his thumb again, swore under his breath: then lifting his head andlooking at me with sullen and passionate impudence--"Bah! the Pacific is big, myfriendt. You damned Englishmen can do your worst; I know where there's plentyroom for a man like me: I am well aguaindt in Apia, in Honolulu, in . . ." Hepaused reflectively, while without effort I could depict to myself the sort of peoplehe was "aguaindt" with in those places. I won't make a secret of it that I had been"aguaindt" with not a few of that sort myself. There are times when a man mustact as though life were equally sweet in any company. I've known such a time,and, what's more, I shan't now pretend to pull a long face over my necessity,because a good many of that bad company from want of moral--moral--whatshall I say?--posture, or from some other equally profound cause, were twice asinstructive and twenty times more amusing than the usual respectable thief ofcommerce you fellows ask to sit at your table without any real necessity--fromhabit, from cowardice, from good-nature, from a hundred sneaking andinadequate reasons.

' "You Englishmen are all rogues," went on my patriotic Flensborg or StettinAustralian. I really don't recollect now what decent little port on the shores of theBaltic was defiled by being the nest of that precious bird. "What are you to shout?Eh? You tell me? You no better than other people, and that old rogue he makeGottam fuss with me." His thick carcass trembled on its legs that were like a pairof pillars; it trembled from head to foot. "That's what you English always make--make a tam' fuss--for any little thing, because I was not born in your tam' country.Take away my certificate. Take it. I don't want the certificate. A man like me don'twant your verfluchte certificate. I shpit on it." He spat. "I vill an Amerigan citizenbegome," he cried, fretting and fuming and shuffling his feet as if to free hisankles from some invisible and mysterious grasp that would not let him get awayfrom that spot. He made himself so warm that the top of his bullet head positivelysmoked. Nothing mysterious prevented me from going away: curiosity is the mostobvious of sentiments, and it held me there to see the effect of a full informationupon that young fellow who, hands in pockets, and turning his back upon thesidewalk, gazed across the grass-plots of the Esplanade at the yellow portico ofthe Malabar Hotel with the air of a man about to go for a walk as soon as hisfriend is ready. That's how he looked, and it was odious. I waited to see himoverwhelmed, confounded, pierced through and through, squirming like animpaled beetle--and I was half afraid to see it too--if you understand what I mean.Nothing more awful than to watch a man who has been found out, not in a crimebut in a more than criminal weakness. The commonest sort of fortitude preventsus from becoming criminals in a legal sense; it is from weakness unknown, butperhaps suspected, as in some parts of the world you suspect a deadly snake inevery bush--from weakness that may lie hidden, watched or unwatched, prayedagainst or manfully scorned, repressed or maybe ignored more than half alifetime, not one of us is safe. We are snared into doing things for which we getcalled names, and things for which we get hanged, and yet the spirit may wellsurvive--survive the condemnation, survive the halter, by Jove! And there arethings--they look small enough sometimes too--by which some of us are totallyand completely undone. I watched the youngster there. I liked his appearance; Iknew his appearance; he came from the right place; he was one of us. He stoodthere for all the parentage of his kind, for men and women by no means clever oramusing, but whose very existence is based upon honest faith, and upon theinstinct of courage. I don't mean military courage, or civil courage, or any specialkind of courage. I mean just that inborn ability to look temptations straight in theface--a readiness unintellectual enough, goodness knows, but without pose--apower of resistance, don't you see, ungracious if you like, but priceless--anunthinking and blessed stiffness before the outward and inward terrors, beforethe might of nature and the seductive corruption of men--backed by a faithinvulnerable to the strength of facts, to the contagion of example, to thesolicitation of ideas. Hang ideas! They are tramps, vagabonds, knocking at theback-door of your mind, each taking a little of your substance, each carryingaway some crumb of that belief in a few simple notions you must cling to if youwant to live decently and would like to die easy!

'This has nothing to do with Jim, directly; only he was outwardly so typical of thatgood, stupid kind we like to feel marching right and left of us in life, of the kindthat is not disturbed by the vagaries of intelligence and the perversions of--ofnerves, let us say. He was the kind of fellow you would, on the strength of hislooks, leave in charge of the deck--figuratively and professionally speaking. I sayI would, and I ought to know. Haven't I turned out youngsters enough in my time,for the service of the Red Rag, to the craft of the sea, to the craft whose wholesecret could be expressed in one short sentence, and yet must be driven afreshevery day into young heads till it becomes the component part of every wakingthought--till it is present in every dream of their young sleep! The sea has beengood to me, but when I remember all these boys that passed through my hands,some grown up now and some drowned by this time, but all good stuff for thesea, I don't think I have done badly by it either. Were I to go home to-morrow, Ibet that before two days passed over my head some sunburnt young chief matewould overtake me at some dock gateway or other, and a fresh deep voicespeaking above my hat would ask: "Don't you remember me, sir? Why! little So-and-so. Such and such a ship. It was my first voyage." And I would remember abewildered little shaver, no higher than the back of this chair, with a mother andperhaps a big sister on the quay, very quiet but too upset to wave theirhandkerchiefs at the ship that glides out gently between the pier-heads; orperhaps some decent middle-aged father who had come early with his boy to seehim off, and stays all the morning, because he is interested in the windlassapparently, and stays too long, and has got to scramble ashore at last with notime at all to say good-bye. The mud pilot on the poop sings out to me in a drawl,"Hold her with the check line for a moment, Mister Mate. There's a gentlemanwants to get ashore. . . . Up with you, sir. Nearly got carried off to Talcahuano,didn't you? Now's your time; easy does it. . . . All right. Slack away again forwardthere." The tugs, smoking like the pit of perdition, get hold and churn the old riverinto fury; the gentleman ashore is dusting his knees--the benevolent steward hasshied his umbrella after him. All very proper. He has offered his bit of sacrifice tothe sea, and now he may go home pretending he thinks nothing of it; and thelittle willing victim shall be very sea-sick before next morning. By-and-by, whenhe has learned all the little mysteries and the one great secret of the craft, heshall be fit to live or die as the sea may decree; and the man who had taken ahand in this fool game, in which the sea wins every toss, will be pleased to havehis back slapped by a heavy young hand, and to hear a cheery sea-puppy voice:"Do you remember me, sir? The little So-and-so."

'I tell you this is good; it tells you that once in your life at least you had gone theright way to work. I have been thus slapped, and I have winced, for the slap washeavy, and I have glowed all day long and gone to bed feeling less lonely in theworld by virtue of that hearty thump. Don't I remember the little So-and-so's! I tellyou I ought to know the right kind of looks. I would have trusted the deck to thatyoungster on the strength of a single glance, and gone to sleep with both eyes--and, by Jove! it wouldn't have been safe. There are depths of horror in thatthought. He looked as genuine as a new sovereign, but there was some infernalalloy in his metal. How much? The least thing--the least drop of something rareand accursed; the least drop!--but he made you--standing there with his don't-care-hang air--he made you wonder whether perchance he were nothing morerare than brass.

'I couldn't believe it. I tell you I wanted to see him squirm for the honour of thecraft. The other two no-account chaps spotted their captain, and began to moveslowly towards us. They chatted together as they strolled, and I did not care anymore than if they had not been visible to the naked eye. They grinned at eachother--might have been exchanging jokes, for all I know. I saw that with one ofthem it was a case of a broken arm; and as to the long individual with greymoustaches he was the chief engineer, and in various ways a pretty notoriouspersonality. They were nobodies. They approached. The skipper gazed in aninanimate way between his feet: he seemed to be swollen to an unnatural size bysome awful disease, by the mysterious action of an unknown poison. He lifted hishead, saw the two before him waiting, opened his mouth with an extraordinary,sneering contortion of his puffed face--to speak to them, I suppose--and then athought seemed to strike him. His thick, purplish lips came together without asound, he went off in a resolute waddle to the gharry and began to jerk at thedoor-handle with such a blind brutality of impatience that I expected to see thewhole concern overturned on its side, pony and all. The driver, shaken out of hismeditation over the sole of his foot, displayed at once all the signs of intenseterror, and held with both hands, looking round from his box at this vast carcassforcing its way into his conveyance. The little machine shook and rockedtumultuously, and the crimson nape of that lowered neck, the size of thosestraining thighs, the immense heaving of that dingy, striped green-and-orangeback, the whole burrowing effort of that gaudy and sordid mass, troubled one'ssense of probability with a droll and fearsome effect, like one of those grotesqueand distinct visions that scare and fascinate one in a fever. He disappeared. I halfexpected the roof to split in two, the little box on wheels to burst open in themanner of a ripe cotton-pod--but it only sank with a click of flattened springs, andsuddenly one venetian blind rattled down. His shoulders reappeared, jammed inthe small opening; his head hung out, distended and tossing like a captiveballoon, perspiring, furious, spluttering. He reached for the gharry-wallah withvicious flourishes of a fist as dumpy and red as a lump of raw meat. He roared athim to be off, to go on. Where? Into the Pacific, perhaps. The driver lashed; thepony snorted, reared once, and darted off at a gallop. Where? To Apia? ToHonolulu? He had 6000 miles of tropical belt to disport himself in, and I did nothear the precise address. A snorting pony snatched him into "Ewigkeit" in thetwinkling of an eye, and I never saw him again; and, what's more, I don't know ofanybody that ever had a glimpse of him after he departed from my knowledgesitting inside a ramshackle little gharry that fled round the corner in a whitesmother of dust. He departed, disappeared, vanished, absconded; and absurdlyenough it looked as though he had taken that gharry with him, for never again didI come across a sorrel pony with a slit ear and a lackadaisical Tamil driverafflicted by a sore foot. The Pacific is indeed big; but whether he found a placefor a display of his talents in it or not, the fact remains he had flown into spacelike a witch on a broomstick. The little chap with his arm in a sling started to runafter the carriage, bleating, "Captain! I say, Captain! I sa-a-ay!"--but after a fewsteps stopped short, hung his head, and walked back slowly. At the sharp rattleof the wheels the young fellow spun round where he stood. He made no othermovement, no gesture, no sign, and remained facing in the new direction afterthe gharry had swung out of sight.

'All this happened in much less time than it takes to tell, since I am trying tointerpret for you into slow speech the instantaneous effect of visual impressions.Next moment the half-caste clerk, sent by Archie to look a little after the poorcastaways of the Patna, came upon the scene. He ran out eager andbareheaded, looking right and left, and very full of his mission. It was doomed tobe a failure as far as the principal person was concerned, but he approached theothers with fussy importance, and, almost immediately, found himself involved ina violent altercation with the chap that carried his arm in a sling, and who turnedout to be extremely anxious for a row. He wasn't going to be ordered about--"nothe, b'gosh." He wouldn't be terrified with a pack of lies by a cocky half-bred littlequill-driver. He was not going to be bullied by "no object of that sort," if the storywere true "ever so"! He bawled his wish, his desire, his determination to go tobed. "If you weren't a God-forsaken Portuguee," I heard him yell, "you wouldknow that the hospital is the right place for me." He pushed the fist of his soundarm under the other's nose; a crowd began to collect; the half-caste, flustered,but doing his best to appear dignified, tried to explain his intentions. I went awaywithout waiting to see the end.

'But it so happened that I had a man in the hospital at the time, and going thereto see about him the day before the opening of the Inquiry, I saw in the whitemen's ward that little chap tossing on his back, with his arm in splints, and quitelight-headed. To my great surprise the other one, the long individual withdrooping white moustache, had also found his way there. I remembered I hadseen him slinking away during the quarrel, in a half prance, half shuffle, andtrying very hard not to look scared. He was no stranger to the port, it seems, andin his distress was able to make tracks straight for Mariani's billiard-room andgrog-shop near the bazaar. That unspeakable vagabond, Mariani, who hadknown the man and had ministered to his vices in one or two other places, kissedthe ground, in a manner of speaking, before him, and shut him up with a supplyof bottles in an upstairs room of his infamous hovel. It appears he was undersome hazy apprehension as to his personal safety, and wished to be concealed.However, Mariani told me a long time after (when he came on board one day todun my steward for the price of some cigars) that he would have done more forhim without asking any questions, from gratitude for some unholy favour receivedvery many years ago--as far as I could make out. He thumped twice his brawnychest, rolled enormous black-and-white eyes glistening with tears: "Antonio neverforget--Antonio never forget!" What was the precise nature of the immoralobligation I never learned, but be it what it may, he had every facility given him toremain under lock and key, with a chair, a table, a mattress in a corner, and alitter of fallen plaster on the floor, in an irrational state of funk, and keeping up hispecker with such tonics as Mariani dispensed. This lasted till the evening of thethird day, when, after letting out a few horrible screams, he found himselfcompelled to seek safety in flight from a legion of centipedes. He burst the dooropen, made one leap for dear life down the crazy little stairway, landed bodily onMariani's stomach, picked himself up, and bolted like a rabbit into the streets.The police plucked him off a garbage-heap in the early morning. At first he had anotion they were carrying him off to be hanged, and fought for liberty like a hero,but when I sat down by his bed he had been very quiet for two days. His leanbronzed head, with white moustaches, looked fine and calm on the pillow, likethe head of a war-worn soldier with a child-like soul, had it not been for a hint ofspectral alarm that lurked in the blank glitter of his glance, resembling anondescript form of a terror crouching silently behind a pane of glass. He was soextremely calm, that I began to indulge in the eccentric hope of hearingsomething explanatory of the famous affair from his point of view. Why I longedto go grubbing into the deplorable details of an occurrence which, after all,concerned me no more than as a member of an obscure body of men heldtogether by a community of inglorious toil and by fidelity to a certain standard ofconduct, I can't explain. You may call it an unhealthy curiosity if you like; but Ihave a distinct notion I wished to find something. Perhaps, unconsciously, Ihoped I would find that something, some profound and redeeming cause, somemerciful explanation, some convincing shadow of an excuse.

'I see well enough now that I hoped for the impossible--for the laying of what isthe most obstinate ghost of man's creation, of the uneasy doubt uprising like amist, secret and gnawing like a worm, and more chilling than the certitude ofdeath--the doubt of the sovereign power enthroned in a fixed standard ofconduct. It is the hardest thing to stumble against; it is the thing that breedsyelling panics and good little quiet villainies; it's the true shadow of calamity. Did Ibelieve in a miracle? and why did I desire it so ardently? Was it for my own sakethat I wished to find some shadow of an excuse for that young fellow whom I hadnever seen before, but whose appearance alone added a touch of personalconcern to the thoughts suggested by the knowledge of his weakness--made it athing of mystery and terror--like a hint of a destructive fate ready for us all whoseyouth--in its day--had resembled his youth? I fear that such was the secretmotive of my prying. I was, and no mistake, looking for a miracle. The only thingthat at this distance of time strikes me as miraculous is the extent of myimbecility. I positively hoped to obtain from that battered and shady invalid someexorcism against the ghost of doubt. I must have been pretty desperate too, for,without loss of time, after a few indifferent and friendly sentences which heanswered with languid readiness, just as any decent sick man would do, Iproduced the word Patna wrapped up in a delicate question as in a wisp of flosssilk. I was delicate selfishly; I did not want to startle him; I had no solicitude forhim; I was not furious with him and sorry for him: his experience was of noimportance, his redemption would have had no point for me. He had grown old inminor iniquities, and could no longer inspire aversion or pity. He repeated Patna?interrogatively, seemed to make a short effort of memory, and said: "Quite right. Iam an old stager out here. I saw her go down." I made ready to vent myindignation at such a stupid lie, when he added smoothly, "She was full ofreptiles."

'This made me pause. What did he mean? The unsteady phantom of terrorbehind his glassy eyes seemed to stand still and look into mine wistfully. "Theyturned me out of my bunk in the middle watch to look at her sinking," he pursuedin a reflective tone. His voice sounded alarmingly strong all at once. I was sorryfor my folly. There was no snowy-winged coif of a nursing sister to be seen flittingin the perspective of the ward; but away in the middle of a long row of empty ironbedsteads an accident case from some ship in the Roads sat up brown andgaunt with a white bandage set rakishly on the forehead. Suddenly my interestinginvalid shot out an arm thin like a tentacle and clawed my shoulder. "Only myeyes were good enough to see. I am famous for my eyesight. That's why theycalled me, I expect. None of them was quick enough to see her go, but they sawthat she was gone right enough, and sang out together--like this." . . . A wolfishhowl searched the very recesses of my soul. "Oh! make 'im dry up," whined theaccident case irritably. "You don't believe me, I suppose," went on the other, withan air of ineffable conceit. "I tell you there are no such eyes as mine this side ofthe Persian Gulf. Look under the bed."

'Of course I stooped instantly. I defy anybody not to have done so. "What canyou see?" he asked. "Nothing," I said, feeling awfully ashamed of myself. Hescrutinised my face with wild and withering contempt. "Just so," he said, "but if Iwere to look I could see--there's no eyes like mine, I tell you." Again he clawed,pulling at me downwards in his eagerness to relieve himself by a confidentialcommunication. "Millions of pink toads. There's no eyes like mine. Millions of pinktoads. It's worse than seeing a ship sink. I could look at sinking ships and smokemy pipe all day long. Why don't they give me back my pipe? I would get a smokewhile I watched these toads. The ship was full of them. They've got to bewatched, you know." He winked facetiously. The perspiration dripped on him offmy head, my drill coat clung to my wet back: the afternoon breeze sweptimpetuously over the row of bedsteads, the stiff folds of curtains stirredperpendicularly, rattling on brass rods, the covers of empty beds blew aboutnoiselessly near the bare floor all along the line, and I shivered to the verymarrow. The soft wind of the tropics played in that naked ward as bleak as awinter's gale in an old barn at home. "Don't you let him start his hollering, mister,"hailed from afar the accident case in a distressed angry shout that came ringingbetween the walls like a quavering call down a tunnel. The clawing hand hauledat my shoulder; he leered at me knowingly. "The ship was full of them, you know,and we had to clear out on the strict Q.T.," he whispered with extreme rapidity.

' "All pink. All pink--as big as mastiffs, with an eye on the top of the head andclaws all round their ugly mouths. Ough! Ough!" Quick jerks as of galvanicshocks disclosed under the flat coverlet the outlines of meagre and agitated legs;he let go my shoulder and reached after something in the air; his body trembledtensely like a released harp-string; and while I looked down, the spectral horror inhim broke through his glassy gaze. Instantly his face of an old soldier, with itsnoble and calm outlines, became decomposed before my eyes by the corruptionof stealthy cunning, of an abominable caution and of desperate fear. Herestrained a cry-- "Ssh! what are they doing now down there?" he asked, pointingto the floor with fantastic precautions of voice and gesture, whose meaning,borne upon my mind in a lurid flash, made me very sick of my cleverness. "Theyare all asleep," I answered, watching him narrowly. That was it. That's what hewanted to hear; these were the exact words that could calm him. He drew a longbreath. "Ssh! Quiet, steady. I am an old stager out here. I know them brutes.Bash in the head of the first that stirs. There's too many of them, and she won'tswim more than ten minutes." He panted again. "Hurry up," he yelled suddenly,and went on in a steady scream: "They are all awake--millions of them. They aretrampling on me! Wait! Oh, wait! I'll smash them in heaps like flies. Wait for me!Help! H-e-elp!" An interminable and sustained howl completed my discomfiture. Isaw in the distance the accident case raise deplorably both his hands to hisbandaged head; a dresser, aproned to the chin showed himself in the vista of theward, as if seen in the small end of a telescope. I confessed myself fairly routed,and without more ado, stepping out through one of the long windows, escapedinto the outside gallery. The howl pursued me like a vengeance. I turned into adeserted landing, and suddenly all became very still and quiet around me, and Idescended the bare and shiny staircase in a silence that enabled me to composemy distracted thoughts. Down below I met one of the resident surgeons who wascrossing the courtyard and stopped me. "Been to see your man, Captain? I thinkwe may let him go to-morrow. These fools have no notion of taking care ofthemselves, though. I say, we've got the chief engineer of that pilgrim ship here.A curious case. D.T.'s of the worst kind. He has been drinking hard in thatGreek's or Italian's grog-shop for three days. What can you expect? Four bottlesof that kind of brandy a day, I am told. Wonderful, if true. Sheeted with boiler-ironinside I should think. The head, ah! the head, of course, gone, but the curiouspart is there's some sort of method in his raving. I am trying to find out. Mostunusual--that thread of logic in such a delirium. Traditionally he ought to seesnakes, but he doesn't. Good old tradition's at a discount nowadays. Eh! His--er--visions are batrachian. Ha! ha! No, seriously, I never remember being sointerested in a case of jim-jams before. He ought to be dead, don't you know,after such a festive experiment. Oh! he is a tough object. Four-and-twenty yearsof the tropics too. You ought really to take a peep at him. Noble-looking oldboozer. Most extraordinary man I ever met--medically, of course. Won't you?"

'I have been all along exhibiting the usual polite signs of interest, but nowassuming an air of regret I murmured of want of time, and shook hands in ahurry. "I say," he cried after me; "he can't attend that inquiry. Is his evidencematerial, you think?"

' "Not in the least," I called back from the gateway.'

Chapter 6

'The authorities were evidently of the same opinion. The inquiry was notadjourned. It was held on the appointed day to satisfy the law, and it was wellattended because of its human interest, no doubt. There was no incertitude as tofacts--as to the one material fact, I mean. How the Patna came by her hurt it wasimpossible to find out; the court did not expect to find out; and in the wholeaudience there was not a man who cared. Yet, as I've told you, all the sailors inthe port attended, and the waterside business was fully represented. Whetherthey knew it or not, the interest that drew them here was purely psychological--the expectation of some essential disclosure as to the strength, the power, thehorror, of human emotions. Naturally nothing of the kind could be disclosed. Theexamination of the only man able and willing to face it was beating futilely roundthe well-known fact, and the play of questions upon it was as instructive as thetapping with a hammer on an iron box, were the object to find out what's inside.However, an official inquiry could not be any other thing. Its object was not thefundamental why, but the superficial how, of this affair.

'The young chap could have told them, and, though that very thing was the thingthat interested the audience, the questions put to him necessarily led him awayfrom what to me, for instance, would have been the only truth worth knowing.You can't expect the constituted authorities to inquire into the state of a man'ssoul-- or is it only of his liver? Their business was to come down upon theconsequences, and frankly, a casual police magistrate and two nauticalassessors are not much good for anything else. I don't mean to imply thesefellows were stupid. The magistrate was very patient. One of the assessors wasa sailing-ship skipper with a reddish beard, and of a pious disposition. Brierly wasthe other. Big Brierly. Some of you must have heard of Big Brierly--the captain ofthe crack ship of the Blue Star line. That's the man.

'He seemed consumedly bored by the honour thrust upon him. He had never inhis life made a mistake, never had an accident, never a mishap, never a check inhis steady rise, and he seemed to be one of those lucky fellows who knownothing of indecision, much less of self-mistrust. At thirty-two he had one of thebest commands going in the Eastern trade--and, what's more, he thought a lot ofwhat he had. There was nothing like it in the world, and I suppose if you hadasked him point-blank he would have confessed that in his opinion there was notsuch another commander. The choice had fallen upon the right man. The rest ofmankind that did not command the sixteen-knot steel steamer Ossa were ratherpoor creatures. He had saved lives at sea, had rescued ships in distress, had agold chronometer presented to him by the underwriters, and a pair of binocularswith a suitable inscription from some foreign Government, in commemoration ofthese services. He was acutely aware of his merits and of his rewards. I liked himwell enough, though some I know--meek, friendly men at that--couldn't stand himat any price. I haven't the slightest doubt he considered himself vastly mysuperior--indeed, had you been Emperor of East and West, you could not haveignored your inferiority in his presence-- but I couldn't get up any real sentimentof offence. He did not despise me for anything I could help, for anything I was--don't you know? I was a negligible quantity simply because I was not thefortunate man of the earth, not Montague Brierly in command of the Ossa, notthe owner of an inscribed gold chronometer and of silver-mounted binocularstestifying to the excellence of my seamanship and to my indomitable pluck; notpossessed of an acute sense of my merits and of my rewards, besides the loveand worship of a black retriever, the most wonderful of its kind--for never wassuch a man loved thus by such a dog. No doubt, to have all this forced upon youwas exasperating enough; but when I reflected that I was associated in thesefatal disadvantages with twelve hundred millions of other more or less humanbeings, I found I could bear my share of his good-natured and contemptuous pityfor the sake of something indefinite and attractive in the man. I have neverdefined to myself this attraction, but there were moments when I envied him. Thesting of life could do no more to his complacent soul than the scratch of a pin tothe smooth face of a rock. This was enviable. As I looked at him, flanking on oneside the unassuming pale-faced magistrate who presided at the inquiry, his self-satisfaction presented to me and to the world a surface as hard as granite. Hecommitted suicide very soon after.

'No wonder Jim's case bored him, and while I thought with something akin to fearof the immensity of his contempt for the young man under examination, he wasprobably holding silent inquiry into his own case. The verdict must have been ofunmitigated guilt, and he took the secret of the evidence with him in that leap intothe sea. If I understand anything of men, the matter was no doubt of the gravestimport, one of those trifles that awaken ideas--start into life some thought withwhich a man unused to such a companionship finds it impossible to live. I am in aposition to know that it wasn't money, and it wasn't drink, and it wasn't woman.He jumped overboard at sea barely a week after the end of the inquiry, and lessthan three days after leaving port on his outward passage; as though on thatexact spot in the midst of waters he had suddenly perceived the gates of theother world flung open wide for his reception.

'Yet it was not a sudden impulse. His grey-headed mate, a first-rate sailor and anice old chap with strangers, but in his relations with his commander the surliestchief officer I've ever seen, would tell the story with tears in his eyes. It appearsthat when he came on deck in the morning Brierly had been writing in the chart-room. "It was ten minutes to four," he said, "and the middle watch was notrelieved yet of course. He heard my voice on the bridge speaking to the secondmate, and called me in. I was loth to go, and that's the truth, Captain Marlow--Icouldn't stand poor Captain Brierly, I tell you with shame; we never know what aman is made of. He had been promoted over too many heads, not counting myown, and he had a damnable trick of making you feel small, nothing but by theway he said 'Good morning.' I never addressed him, sir, but on matters of duty,and then it was as much as I could do to keep a civil tongue in my head." (Heflattered himself there. I often wondered how Brierly could put up with hismanners for more than half a voyage.) "I've a wife and children," he went on,"and I had been ten years in the Company, always expecting the next command--more fool I. Says he, just like this: 'Come in here, Mr. Jones,' in that swaggervoice of his--'Come in here, Mr. Jones.' In I went. 'We'll lay down her position,'says he, stooping over the chart, a pair of dividers in hand. By the standingorders, the officer going off duty would have done that at the end of his watch.However, I said nothing, and looked on while he marked off the ship's positionwith a tiny cross and wrote the date and the time. I can see him this momentwriting his neat figures: seventeen, eight, four A.M. The year would be written inred ink at the top of the chart. He never used his charts more than a year,Captain Brierly didn't. I've the chart now. When he had done he stands lookingdown at the mark he had made and smiling to himself, then looks up at me.'Thirty-two miles more as she goes,' says he, 'and then we shall be clear, andyou may alter the course twenty degrees to the southward.'

' "We were passing to the north of the Hector Bank that voyage. I said, 'All right,sir,' wondering what he was fussing about, since I had to call him before alteringthe course anyhow. lust then eight bells were struck: we came out on the bridge,and the second mate before going off mentions in the usual way--'Seventy-oneon the log.' Captain Brierly looks at the compass and then all round. It was darkand clear, and all the stars were out as plain as on a frosty night in high latitudes.Suddenly he says with a sort of a little sigh: 'I am going aft, and shall set the logat zero for you myself, so that there can be no mistake. Thirty-two miles more onthis course and then you are safe. Let's see--the correction on the log is six percent. additive; say, then, thirty by the dial to run, and you may come twentydegrees to starboard at once. No use losing any distance--is there?' I had neverheard him talk so much at a stretch, and to no purpose as it seemed to me. I saidnothing. He went down the ladder, and the dog, that was always at his heelswhenever he moved, night or day, followed, sliding nose first, after him. I heardhis boot-heels tap, tap on the after-deck, then he stopped and spoke to the dog--'Go back, Rover. On the bridge, boy! Go on--get.' Then he calls out to me fromthe dark, 'Shut that dog up in the chart-room, Mr. Jones--will you?'

' "This was the last time I heard his voice, Captain Marlow. These are the lastwords he spoke in the hearing of any living human being, sir." At this point the oldchap's voice got quite unsteady. "He was afraid the poor brute would jump afterhim, don't you see?" he pursued with a quaver. "Yes, Captain Marlow. He set thelog for me; he--would you believe it?--he put a drop of oil in it too. There was theoil-feeder where he left it near by. The boat-- swain's mate got the hose along aftto wash down at half-past five; by-and-by he knocks off and runs up on thebridge--'Will you please come aft, Mr. Jones,' he says. 'There's a funny thing. Idon't like to touch it.' It was Captain Brierly's gold chronometer watch carefullyhung under the rail by its chain.' "As soon as my eyes fell on it something struck me, and I knew, sir. My legs gotsoft under me. It was as if I had seen him go over; and I could tell how far behindhe was left too. The taffrail-log marked eighteen miles and three-quarters, andfour iron belaying-pins were missing round the mainmast. Put them in his pocketsto help him down, I suppose; but, Lord! what's four iron pins to a powerful manlike Captain Brierly. Maybe his confidence in himself was just shook a bit at thelast. That's the only sign of fluster he gave in his whole life, I should think; but Iam ready to answer for him, that once over he did not try to swim a stroke, thesame as he would have had pluck enough to keep up all day long on the barechance had he fallen overboard accidentally. Yes, sir. He was second to none--ifhe said so himself, as I heard him once. He had written two letters in the middlewatch, one to the Company and the other to me. He gave me a lot of instructionsas to the passage-- I had been in the trade before he was out of his time--and noend of hints as to my conduct with our people in Shanghai, so that I should keepthe command of the Ossa. He wrote like a father would to a favourite son,Captain Marlow, and I was five-and-twenty years his senior and had tasted saltwater before he was fairly breeched. In his letter to the owners--it was left openfor me to see--he said that he had always done his duty by them--up to thatmoment-- and even now he was not betraying their confidence, since he wasleaving the ship to as competent a seaman as could be found-- meaning me, sir,meaning me! He told them that if the last act of his life didn't take away all hiscredit with them, they would give weight to my faithful service and to his warmrecommendation, when about to fill the vacancy made by his death. And muchmore like this, sir. I couldn't believe my eyes. It made me feel queer all over,"went on the old chap, in great perturbation, and squashing something in thecorner of his eye with the end of a thumb as broad as a spatula.

' "You would think, sir, he had jumped overboard only to give an unlucky man alast show to get on. What with the shock of him going in this awful rash way, andthinking myself a made man by that chance, I was nearly off my chump for aweek. But no fear. The captain of the Pelion was shifted into the Ossa--cameaboard in Shanghai--a little popinjay, sir, in a grey check suit, with his hair partedin the middle. 'Aw--I am--aw--your new captain, Mister--Mister--aw--Jones.' Hewas drowned in scent--fairly stunk with it, Captain Marlow. I dare say it was thelook I gave him that made him stammer. He mumbled something about mynatural disappointment--I had better know at once that his chief officer got thepromotion to the Pelion--he had nothing to do with it, of course--supposed theoffice knew best--sorry. . . . Says I, 'Don't you mind old Jones, sir; dam' his soul,he's used to it.' I could see directly I had shocked his delicate ear, and while wesat at our first tiffin together he began to find fault in a nasty manner with this andthat in the ship. I never heard such a voice out of a Punch and Judy show. I setmy teeth hard, and glued my eyes to my plate, and held my peace as long as Icould; but at last I had to say something. Up he jumps tiptoeing, ruffling all hispretty plumes, like a little fighting-cock. 'You'll find you have a different person todeal with than the late Captain Brierly.' 'I've found it,' says I, very glum, butpretending to be mighty busy with my steak. 'You are an old ruffian, Mister--aw--Jones; and what's more, you are known for an old ruffian in the employ,' hesqueaks at me. The damned bottle-washers stood about listening with theirmouths stretched from ear to ear. 'I may be a hard case,' answers I, 'but I ain't sofar gone as to put up with the sight of you sitting in Captain Brierly's chair.' Withthat I lay down my knife and fork. 'You would like to sit in it yourself--that's wherethe shoe pinches,' he sneers. I left the saloon, got my rags together, and was onthe quay with all my dunnage about my feet before the stevedores had turned toagain. Yes. Adrift--on shore--after ten years' service--and with a poor woman andfour children six thousand miles off depending on my half-pay for every mouthfulthey ate. Yes, sir! I chucked it rather than hear Captain Brierly abused. He left mehis night-glasses--here they are; and he wished me to take care of the dog--herehe is. Hallo, Rover, poor boy. Where's the captain, Rover?" The dog looked up atus with mournful yellow eyes, gave one desolate bark, and crept under the table.

'All this was taking place, more than two years afterwards, on board that nauticalruin the Fire-Queen this Jones had got charge of--quite by a funny accident, too--from Matherson--mad Matherson they generally called him--the same who usedto hang out in Hai-phong, you know, before the occupation days. The old chapsnuffled on--

' "Ay, sir, Captain Brierly will be remembered here, if there's no other place onearth. I wrote fully to his father and did not get a word in reply--neither Thankyou, nor Go to the devil!--nothing! Perhaps they did not want to know."

'The sight of that watery-eyed old Jones mopping his bald head with a red cottonhandkerchief, the sorrowing yelp of the dog, the squalor of that fly-blown cuddywhich was the only shrine of his memory, threw a veil of inexpressibly meanpathos over Brierly's remembered figure, the posthumous revenge of fate for thatbelief in his own splendour which had almost cheated his life of its legitimateterrors. Almost! Perhaps wholly. Who can tell what flattering view he had inducedhimself to take of his own suicide?

' "Why did he commit the rash act, Captain Marlow--can you think?" asked Jones,pressing his palms together. "Why? It beats me! Why?" He slapped his low andwrinkled forehead. "If he had been poor and old and in debt--and never a show--or else mad. But he wasn't of the kind that goes mad, not he. You trust me. Whata mate don't know about his skipper isn't worth knowing. Young, healthy, well off,no cares. . . . I sit here sometimes thinking, thinking, till my head fairly begins tobuzz. There was some reason."

' "You may depend on it, Captain Jones," said I, "it wasn't anything that wouldhave disturbed much either of us two," I said; and then, as if a light had beenflashed into the muddle of his brain, poor old Jones found a last word of amazingprofundity. He blew his nose, nodding at me dolefully: "Ay, ay! neither you nor I,sir, had ever thought so much of ourselves."'Of course the recollection of my last conversation with Brierly is tinged with theknowledge of his end that followed so close upon it. I spoke with him for the lasttime during the progress of the inquiry. It was after the first adjournment, and hecame up with me in the street. He was in a state of irritation, which I noticed withsurprise, his usual behaviour when he condescended to converse being perfectlycool, with a trace of amused tolerance, as if the existence of his interlocutor hadbeen a rather good joke. "They caught me for that inquiry, you see," he began,and for a while enlarged complainingly upon the inconveniences of dailyattendance in court. "And goodness knows how long it will last. Three days, Isuppose." I heard him out in silence; in my then opinion it was a way as good asanother of putting on side. "What's the use of it? It is the stupidest set-out youcan imagine," he pursued hotly. I remarked that there was no option. Heinterrupted me with a sort of pent-up violence. "I feel like a fool all the time." Ilooked up at him. This was going very far--for Brierly--when talking of Brierly. Hestopped short, and seizing the lapel of my coat, gave it a slight tug. "Why are wetormenting that young chap?" he asked.

'This question chimed in so well to the tolling of a certain thought of mine that,with the image of the absconding renegade in my eye, I answered at once,"Hanged if I know, unless it be that he lets you." I was astonished to see him fallinto line, so to speak, with that utterance, which ought to have been tolerablycryptic. He said angrily, "Why, yes. Can't he see that wretched skipper of his hascleared out? What does he expect to happen? Nothing can save him. He's donefor." We walked on in silence a few steps. "Why eat all that dirt?" he exclaimed,with an oriental energy of expression-- about the only sort of energy you can finda trace of east of the fiftieth meridian. I wondered greatly at the direction of histhoughts, but now I strongly suspect it was strictly in character: at bottom poorBrierly must have been thinking of himself. I pointed out to him that the skipper ofthe Patna was known to have feathered his nest pretty well, and could procurealmost anywhere the means of getting away. With Jim it was otherwise: theGovernment was keeping him in the Sailors' Home for the time being, andprobably he hadn't a penny in his pocket to bless himself with. It costs somemoney to run away. "Does it? Not always," he said, with a bitter laugh, and tosome further remark of mine--"Well, then, let him creep twenty feet undergroundand stay there! By heavens! I would."

'I don't know why his tone provoked me, and I said, "There is a kind of courage infacing it out as he does, knowing very well that if he went away nobody wouldtrouble to run after hmm." "Courage be hanged!" growled Brierly. "That sort ofcourage is of no use to keep a man straight, and I don't care a snap for suchcourage. If you were to say it was a kind of cowardice now--of softness. I tell youwhat, I will put up two hundred rupees if you put up another hundred andundertake to make the beggar clear out early to-morrow morning. The fellow's agentleman if he ain't fit to be touched--he will understand. He must! This infernalpublicity is too shocking: there he sits while all these confounded natives,serangs, lascars, quartermasters, are giving evidence that's enough to burn aman to ashes with shame. This is abominable. Why, Marlow, don't you think,don't you feel, that this is abominable; don't you now--come--as a seaman? If hewent away all this would stop at once." Brierly said these words with a mostunusual animation, and made as if to reach after his pocket-book. I restrainedhim, and declared coldly that the cowardice of these four men did not seem tome a matter of such great importance. "And you call yourself a seaman, Isuppose," he pronounced angrily. I said that's what I called myself, and I hoped Iwas too. He heard me out, and made a gesture with his big arm that seemed todeprive me of my individuality, to push me away into the crowd. "The worst of it,"he said, "is that all you fellows have no sense of dignity; you don't think enoughof what you are supposed to be."

'We had been walking slowly meantime, and now stopped opposite the harbouroffice, in sight of the very spot from which the immense captain of the Patna hadvanished as utterly as a tiny feather blown away in a hurricane. I smiled. Brierlywent on: "This is a disgrace. We've got all kinds amongst us--some anointedscoundrels in the lot; but, hang it, we must preserve professional decency or webecome no better than so many tinkers going about loose. We are trusted. Doyou understand?--trusted! Frankly, I don't care a snap for all the pilgrims thatever came out of Asia, but a decent man would not have behaved like this to afull cargo of old rags in bales. We aren't an organised body of men, and the onlything that holds us together is just the name for that kind of decency. Such anaffair destroys one's confidence. A man may go pretty near through his wholesea-life without any call to show a stiff upper lip. But when the call comes . . .Aha! . . . If I . . ."

'He broke off, and in a changed tone, "I'll give you two hundred rupees now,Marlow, and you just talk to that chap. Confound him! I wish he had never comeout here. Fact is, I rather think some of my people know his. The old man's aparson, and I remember now I met him once when staying with my cousin inEssex last year. If I am not mistaken, the old chap seemed rather to fancy hissailor son. Horrible. I can't do it myself--but you . . ."

'Thus, apropos of Jim, I had a glimpse of the real Brierly a few days before hecommitted his reality and his sham together to the keeping of the sea. Of course Ideclined to meddle. The tone of this last "but you" (poor Brierly couldn't help it),that seemed to imply I was no more noticeable than an insect, caused me to lookat the proposal with indignation, and on account of that provocation, or for someother reason, I became positive in my mind that the inquiry was a severepunishment to that Jim, and that his facing it-- practically of his own free will--wasa redeeming feature in his abominable case. I hadn't been so sure of it before.Brierly went off in a huff. At the time his state of mind was more of a mystery tome than it is now.

'Next day, coming into court late, I sat by myself. Of course I could not forget theconversation I had with Brierly, and now I had them both under my eyes. Thedemeanour of one suggested gloomy impudence and of the other acontemptuous boredom; yet one attitude might not have been truer than theother, and I was aware that one was not true. Brierly was not bored--he wasexasperated; and if so, then Jim might not have been impudent. According to mytheory he was not. I imagined he was hopeless. Then it was that our glancesmet. They met, and the look he gave me was discouraging of any intention Imight have had to speak to him. Upon either hypothesis--insolence or despair--Ifelt I could be of no use to him. This was the second day of the proceedings.Very soon after that exchange of glances the inquiry was adjourned again to thenext day. The white men began to troop out at once. Jim had been told to standdown some time before, and was able to leave amongst the first. I saw his broadshoulders and his head outlined in the light of the door, and while I made my wayslowly out talking with some one--some stranger who had addressed mecasually--I could see him from within the court-room resting both elbows on thebalustrade of the verandah and turning his back on the small stream of peopletrickling down the few steps. There was a murmur of voices and a shuffle ofboots.

'The next case was that of assault and battery committed upon a money-lender, Ibelieve; and the defendant--a venerable villager with a straight white beard--saton a mat just outside the door with his sons, daughters, sons-in-law, their wives,and, I should think, half the population of his village besides, squatting orstanding around him. A slim dark woman, with part of her back and one blackshoulder bared, and with a thin gold ring in her nose, suddenly began to talk in ahigh-pitched, shrewish tone. The man with me instinctively looked up at her. Wewere then just through the door, passing behind Jim's burly back.

'Whether those villagers had brought the yellow dog with them, I don't know.Anyhow, a dog was there, weaving himself in and out amongst people's legs inthat mute stealthy way native dogs have, and my companion stumbled over him.The dog leaped away without a sound; the man, raising his voice a little, saidwith a slow laugh, "Look at that wretched cur," and directly afterwards webecame separated by a lot of people pushing in. I stood back for a momentagainst the wall while the stranger managed to get down the steps anddisappeared. I saw Jim spin round. He made a step forward and barred my way.We were alone; he glared at me with an air of stubborn resolution. I becameaware I was being held up, so to speak, as if in a wood. The verandah wasempty by then, the noise and movement in court had ceased: a great silence fellupon the building, in which, somewhere far within, an oriental voice began towhine abjectly. The dog, in the very act of trying to sneak in at the door, sat downhurriedly to hunt for fleas.

' "Did you speak to me?" asked Jim very low, and bending forward, not so muchtowards me but at me, if you know what I mean. I said "No" at once. Somethingin the sound of that quiet tone of his warned me to be on my defence. I watchedhim. It was very much like a meeting in a wood, only more uncertain in its issue,since he could possibly want neither my money nor my life--nothing that I couldsimply give up or defend with a clear conscience. "You say you didn't," he said,very sombre. "But I heard." "Some mistake," I protested, utterly at a loss, andnever taking my eyes off him. To watch his face was like watching a darkeningsky before a clap of thunder, shade upon shade imperceptibly coming on, thedoom growing mysteriously intense in the calm of maturing violence.

' "As far as I know, I haven't opened my lips in your hearing," I affirmed withperfect truth. I was getting a little angry, too, at the absurdity of this encounter. Itstrikes me now I have never in my life been so near a beating--I mean it literally;a beating with fists. I suppose I had some hazy prescience of that eventualitybeing in the air. Not that he was actively threatening me. On the contrary, he wasstrangely passive--don't you know? but he was lowering, and, though notexceptionally big, he looked generally fit to demolish a wall. The most reassuringsymptom I noticed was a kind of slow and ponderous hesitation, which I took asa tribute to the evident sincerity of my manner and of my tone. We faced eachother. In the court the assault case was proceeding. I caught the words: "Well--buffalo--stick--in the greatness of my fear. . . ."

' "What did you mean by staring at me all the morning?" said Jim at last. Helooked up and looked down again. "Did you expect us all to sit with downcasteyes out of regard for your susceptibilities?" I retorted sharply. I was not going tosubmit meekly to any of his nonsense. He raised his eyes again, and this timecontinued to look me straight in the face. "No. That's all right," he pronouncedwith an air of deliberating with himself upon the truth of this statement--"that's allright. I am going through with that. Only"--and there he spoke a little faster--"Iwon't let any man call me names outside this court. There was a fellow with you.You spoke to him--oh yes--I know; 'tis all very fine. You spoke to him, but youmeant me to hear. . . ."

'I assured him he was under some extraordinary delusion. I had no conceptionhow it came about. "You thought I would be afraid to resent this," he said, withjust a faint tinge of bitterness. I was interested enough to discern the slightestshades of expression, but I was not in the least enlightened; yet I don't knowwhat in these words, or perhaps just the intonation of that phrase, induced mesuddenly to make all possible allowances for him. I ceased to be annoyed at myunexpected predicament. It was some mistake on his part; he was blundering,and I had an intuition that the blunder was of an odious, of an unfortunate nature.I was anxious to end this scene on grounds of decency, just as one is anxious tocut short some unprovoked and abominable confidence. The funniest part was,that in the midst of all these considerations of the higher order I was conscious ofa certain trepidation as to the possibility--nay, likelihood--of this encounter endingin some disreputable brawl which could not possibly be explained, and wouldmake me ridiculous. I did not hanker after a three days' celebrity as the man whogot a black eye or something of the sort from the mate of the Patna. He, in allprobability, did not care what he did, or at any rate would be fully justified in hisown eyes. It took no magician to see he was amazingly angry about something,for all his quiet and even torpid demeanour. I don't deny I was extremely desirousto pacify him at all costs, had I only known what to do. But I didn't know, as youmay well imagine. It was a blackness without a single gleam. We confrontedeach other in silence. He hung fire for about fifteen seconds, then made a stepnearer, and I made ready to ward off a blow, though I don't think I moved amuscle. "If you were as big as two men and as strong as six," he said very softly,"I would tell you what I think of you. You . . ." "Stop!" I exclaimed. This checkedhim for a second. "Before you tell me what you think of me," I went on quickly,"will you kindly tell me what it is I've said or done?" During the pause that ensuedhe surveyed me with indignation, while I made supernatural efforts of memory, inwhich I was hindered by the oriental voice within the court-room expostulatingwith impassioned volubility against a charge of falsehood. Then we spoke almosttogether. "I will soon show you I am not," he said, in a tone suggestive of a crisis."I declare I don't know," I protested earnestly at the same time. He tried to crushme by the scorn of his glance. "Now that you see I am not afraid you try to crawlout of it," he said. "Who's a cur now--hey?" Then, at last, I understood.

'He had been scanning my features as though looking for a place where hewould plant his fist. "I will allow no man," . . . he mumbled threateningly. It was,indeed, a hideous mistake; he had given himself away utterly. I can't give you anidea how shocked I was. I suppose he saw some reflection of my feelings in myface, because his expression changed just a little. "Good God!" I stammered,"you don't think I . . ." "But I am sure I've heard," he persisted, raising his voicefor the first time since the beginning of this deplorable scene. Then with a shadeof disdain he added, "It wasn't you, then? Very well; I'll find the other." "Don't be afool," I cried in exasperation; "it wasn't that at all." "I've heard," he said again withan unshaken and sombre perseverance.

'There may be those who could have laughed at his pertinacity; I didn't. Oh, Ididn't! There had never been a man so mercilessly shown up by his own naturalimpulse. A single word had stripped him of his discretion--of that discretion whichis more necessary to the decencies of our inner being than clothing is to thedecorum of our body. "Don't be a fool," I repeated. "But the other man said it, youdon't deny that?" he pronounced distinctly, and looking in my face withoutflinching. "No, I don't deny," said I, returning his gaze. At last his eyes followeddownwards the direction of my pointing finger. He appeared at firstuncomprehending, then confounded, and at last amazed and scared as though adog had been a monster and he had never seen a dog before. "Nobody dreamtof insulting you," I said.

'He contemplated the wretched animal, that moved no more than an effigy: it satwith ears pricked and its sharp muzzle pointed into the doorway, and suddenlysnapped at a fly like a piece of mechanism.'I looked at him. The red of his fair sunburnt complexion deepened suddenlyunder the down of his cheeks, invaded his forehead, spread to the roots of hiscurly hair. His ears became intensely crimson, and even the clear blue of hiseyes was darkened many shades by the rush of blood to his head. His lipspouted a little, trembling as though he had been on the point of bursting intotears. I perceived he was incapable of pronouncing a word from the excess of hishumiliation. From disappointment too--who knows? Perhaps he looked forward tothat hammering he was going to give me for rehabilitation, for appeasement?Who can tell what relief he expected from this chance of a row? He was naiveenough to expect anything; but he had given himself away for nothing in thiscase. He had been frank with himself--let alone with me--in the wild hope ofarriving in that way at some effective refutation, and the stars had been ironicallyunpropitious. He made an inarticulate noise in his throat like a man imperfectlystunned by a blow on the head. It was pitiful.

'I didn't catch up again with him till well outside the gate. I had even to trot a bit atthe last, but when, out of breath at his elbow, I taxed him with running away, hesaid, "Never!" and at once turned at bay. I explained I never meant to say he wasrunning away from me. "From no man--from not a single man on earth," heaffirmed with a stubborn mien. I forbore to point out the one obvious exceptionwhich would hold good for the bravest of us; I thought he would find out byhimself very soon. He looked at me patiently while I was thinking of something tosay, but I could find nothing on the spur of the moment, and he began to walk on.I kept up, and anxious not to lose him, I said hurriedly that I couldn't think ofleaving him under a false impression of my--of my--I stammered. The stupidity ofthe phrase appalled me while I was trying to finish it, but the power of sentenceshas nothing to do with their sense or the logic of their construction. My idioticmumble seemed to please him. He cut it short by saying, with courteous placiditythat argued an immense power of self-control or else a wonderful elasticity ofspirits--"Altogether my mistake." I marvelled greatly at this expression: he mighthave been alluding to some trifling occurrence. Hadn't he understood itsdeplorable meaning? "You may well forgive me," he continued, and went on alittle moodily, "All these staring people in court seemed such fools that--that itmight have been as I supposed."

'This opened suddenly a new view of him to my wonder. I looked at him curiouslyand met his unabashed and impenetrable eyes. "I can't put up with this kind ofthing," he said, very simply, "and I don't mean to. In court it's different; I've got tostand that--and I can do it too."

'I don't pretend I understood him. The views he let me have of himself were likethose glimpses through the shifting rents in a thick fog--bits of vivid and vanishingdetail, giving no connected idea of the general aspect of a country. They fedone's curiosity without satisfying it; they were no good for purposes of orientation.Upon the whole he was misleading. That's how I summed him up to myself afterhe left me late in the evening. I had been staying at the Malabar House for a fewdays, and on my pressing invitation he dined with me there.' Chapter 7

'An outward-bound mail-boat had come in that afternoon, and the big dining-roomof the hotel was more than half full of people with a-hundred-pounds-round-the-world tickets in their pockets. There were married couples looking domesticatedand bored with each other in the midst of their travels; there were small partiesand large parties, and lone individuals dining solemnly or feasting boisterously,but all thinking, conversing, joking, or scowling as was their wont at home; andjust as intelligently receptive of new impressions as their trunks upstairs.Henceforth they would be labelled as having passed through this and that place,and so would be their luggage. They would cherish this distinction of theirpersons, and preserve the gummed tickets on their portmanteaus asdocumentary evidence, as the only permanent trace of their improving enterprise.The dark-faced servants tripped without noise over the vast and polished floor;now and then a girl's laugh would be heard, as innocent and empty as her mind,or, in a sudden hush of crockery, a few words in an affected drawl from some witembroidering for the benefit of a grinning tableful the last funny story of shipboardscandal. Two nomadic old maids, dressed up to kill, worked acrimoniouslythrough the bill of fare, whispering to each other with faded lips, wooden-facedand bizarre, like two sumptuous scarecrows. A little wine opened Jim's heart andloosened his tongue. His appetite was good, too, I noticed. He seemed to haveburied somewhere the opening episode of our acquaintance. It was like a thing ofwhich there would be no more question in this world. And all the time I hadbefore me these blue, boyish eyes looking straight into mine, this young face,these capable shoulders, the open bronzed forehead with a white line under theroots of clustering fair hair, this appearance appealing at sight to all mysympathies: this frank aspect, the artless smile, the youthful seriousness. He wasof the right sort; he was one of us. He talked soberly, with a sort of composedunreserve, and with a quiet bearing that might have been the outcome of manlyself-control, of impudence, of callousness, of a colossal unconsciousness, of agigantic deception. Who can tell! From our tone we might have been discussing athird person, a football match, last year's weather. My mind floated in a sea ofconjectures till the turn of the conversation enabled me, without being offensive,to remark that, upon the whole, this inquiry must have been pretty trying to him.He darted his arm across the tablecloth, and clutching my hand by the side of myplate, glared fixedly. I was startled. "It must be awfully hard," I stammered,confused by this display of speechless feeling. "It is-- hell," he burst out in amuffled voice.

'This movement and these words caused two well-groomed male globe-trotters ata neighbouring table to look up in alarm from their iced pudding. I rose, and wepassed into the front gallery for coffee and cigars.'On little octagon tables candles burned in glass globes; clumps of stiff-leavedplants separated sets of cosy wicker chairs; and between the pairs of columns,whose reddish shafts caught in a long row the sheen from the tall windows, thenight, glittering and sombre, seemed to hang like a splendid drapery. The ridinglights of ships winked afar like setting stars, and the hills across the roadsteadresembled rounded black masses of arrested thunder-clouds.

' "I couldn't clear out," Jim began. "The skipper did--that's all very well for him. Icouldn't, and I wouldn't. They all got out of it in one way or another, but it wouldn'tdo for me."

'I listened with concentrated attention, not daring to stir in my chair; I wanted toknow--and to this day I don't know, I can only guess. He would be confident anddepressed all in the same breath, as if some conviction of innate blamelessnesshad checked the truth writhing within him at every turn. He began by saying, inthe tone in which a man would admit his inability to jump a twenty-foot wall, thathe could never go home now; and this declaration recalled to my mind whatBrierly had said, "that the old parson in Essex seemed to fancy his sailor son nota little."

'I can't tell you whether Jim knew he was especially "fancied," but the tone of hisreferences to "my Dad" was calculated to give me a notion that the good old ruraldean was about the finest man that ever had been worried by the cares of a largefamily since the beginning of the world. This, though never stated, was impliedwith an anxiety that there should be no mistake about it, which was really verytrue and charming, but added a poignant sense of lives far off to the otherelements of the story. "He has seen it all in the home papers by this time," saidJim. "I can never face the poor old chap." I did not dare to lift my eyes at this till Iheard him add, "I could never explain. He wouldn't understand." Then I lookedup. He was smoking reflectively, and after a moment, rousing himself, began totalk again. He discovered at once a desire that I should not confound him with hispartners in--in crime, let us call it. He was not one of them; he was altogether ofanother sort. I gave no sign of dissent. I had no intention, for the sake of barrentruth, to rob him of the smallest particle of any saving grace that would come inhis way. I didn't know how much of it he believed himself. I didn't know what hewas playing up to--if he was playing up to anything at all--and I suspect he didnot know either; for it is my belief no man ever understands quite his own artfuldodges to escape from the grim shadow of self-knowledge. I made no sound allthe time he was wondering what he had better do after "that stupid inquiry wasover."

'Apparently he shared Brierly's contemptuous opinion of these proceedings

ordained by law. He would not know where to turn, he confessed, clearly thinkingaloud rather than talking to me. Certificate gone, career broken, no money to getaway, no work that he could obtain as far as he could see. At home he couldperhaps get something; but it meant going to his people for help, and that hewould not do. He saw nothing for it but ship before the mast-- could get perhapsa quartermaster's billet in some steamer. Would do for a quartermaster. . . . "Doyou think you would?" I asked pitilessly. He jumped up, and going to the stonebalustrade looked out into the night. In a moment he was back, towering abovemy chair with his youthful face clouded yet by the pain of a conquered emotion.He had understood very well I did not doubt his ability to steer a ship. In a voicethat quavered a bit he asked me why did I say that? I had been "no end kind" tohim. I had not even laughed at him when--here he began to mumble--"thatmistake, you know-- made a confounded ass of myself." I broke in by sayingrather warmly that for me such a mistake was not a matter to laugh at. He satdown and drank deliberately some coffee, emptying the small cup to the lastdrop. "That does not mean I admit for a moment the cap fitted," he declareddistinctly. "No?" I said. "No," he affirmed with quiet decision. "Do you know whatyou would have done? Do you? And you don't think yourself" . . . he gulpedsomething . . . "you don't think yourself a--a--cur?"

'And with this--upon my honour!--he looked up at me inquisitively. It was a

question it appears--a bona fide question! However, he didn't wait for an answer.Before I could recover he went on, with his eyes straight before him, as if readingoff something written on the body of the night. "It is all in being ready. I wasn't;not-- not then. I don't want to excuse myself; but I would like to explain-- I wouldlike somebody to understand--somebody--one person at least! You! Why notyou?"

'It was solemn, and a little ridiculous too, as they always are, those struggles ofan individual trying to save from the fire his idea of what his moral identity shouldbe, this precious notion of a convention, only one of the rules of the game,nothing more, but all the same so terribly effective by its assumption of unlimitedpower over natural instincts, by the awful penalties of its failure. He began hisstory quietly enough. On board that Dale Line steamer that had picked up thesefour floating in a boat upon the discreet sunset glow of the sea, they had beenafter the first day looked askance upon. The fat skipper told some story, theothers had been silent, and at first it had been accepted. You don't cross-examine poor castaways you had the good luck to save, if not from cruel death,then at least from cruel suffering. Afterwards, with time to think it over, it mighthave struck the officers of the Avondale that there was "something fishy" in theaffair; but of course they would keep their doubts to themselves. They had pickedup the captain, the mate, and two engineers of the steamer Patna sunk at sea,and that, very properly, was enough for them. I did not ask Jim about the natureof his feelings during the ten days he spent on board. From the way he narratedthat part I was at liberty to infer he was partly stunned by the discovery he hadmade--the discovery about himself--and no doubt was at work trying to explain itaway to the only man who was capable of appreciating all its tremendousmagnitude. You must understand he did not try to minimise its importance. Ofthat I am sure; and therein lies his distinction. As to what sensations heexperienced when he got ashore and heard the unforeseen conclusion of the talein which he had taken such a pitiful part, he told me nothing of them, and it isdifficult to imagine.

'I wonder whether he felt the ground cut from under his feet? I wonder? But nodoubt he managed to get a fresh foothold very soon. He was ashore a wholefortnight waiting in the Sailors' Home, and as there were six or seven menstaying there at the time, I had heard of him a little. Their languid opinion seemedto be that, in addition to his other shortcomings, he was a sulky brute. He hadpassed these days on the verandah, buried in a long chair, and coming out of hisplace of sepulture only at meal-times or late at night, when he wandered on thequays all by himself, detached from his surroundings, irresolute and silent, like aghost without a home to haunt. "I don't think I've spoken three words to a livingsoul in all that time," he said, making me very sorry for him; and directly headded, "One of these fellows would have been sure to blurt out something I hadmade up my mind not to put up with, and I didn't want a row. No! Not then. I wastoo--too . . . I had no heart for it." "So that bulkhead held out after all," I remarkedcheerfully. "Yes," he murmured, "it held. And yet I swear to you I felt it bulgeunder my hand." "It's extraordinary what strains old iron will stand sometimes," Isaid. Thrown back in his seat, his legs stiffly out and arms hanging down, henodded slightly several times. You could not conceive a sadder spectacle.Suddenly he lifted his head; he sat up; he slapped his thigh. "Ah! what a chancemissed! My God! what a chance missed!" he blazed out, but the ring of the last"missed" resembled a cry wrung out by pain.

'He was silent again with a still, far-away look of fierce yearning after that misseddistinction, with his nostrils for an instant dilated, sniffing the intoxicating breath ofthat wasted opportunity. If you think I was either surprised or shocked you do mean injustice in more ways than one! Ah, he was an imaginative beggar! He wouldgive himself away; he would give himself up. I could see in his glance darted intothe night all his inner being carried on, projected headlong into the fanciful realmof recklessly heroic aspirations. He had no leisure to regret what he had lost, hewas so wholly and naturally concerned for what he had failed to obtain. He wasvery far away from me who watched him across three feet of space. With everyinstant he was penetrating deeper into the impossible world of romanticachievements. He got to the heart of it at last! A strange look of beatitudeoverspread his features, his eyes sparkled in the light of the candle burningbetween us; he positively smiled! He had penetrated to the very heart--to thevery heart. It was an ecstatic smile that your faces--or mine either--will neverwear, my dear boys. I whisked him back by saying, "If you had stuck to the ship,you mean!"

'He turned upon me, his eyes suddenly amazed and full of pain, with abewildered, startled, suffering face, as though he had tumbled down from a star.Neither you nor I will ever look like this on any man. He shuddered profoundly, asif a cold finger-tip had touched his heart. Last of all he sighed.'I was not in a merciful mood. He provoked one by his contradictory indiscretions."It is unfortunate you didn't know beforehand!" I said with every unkind intention;but the perfidious shaft fell harmless--dropped at his feet like a spent arrow, as itwere, and he did not think of picking it up. Perhaps he had not even seen it.Presently, lolling at ease, he said, "Dash it all! I tell you it bulged. I was holdingup my lamp along the angle-iron in the lower deck when a flake of rust as big asthe palm of my hand fell off the plate, all of itself." He passed his hand over hisforehead. "The thing stirred and jumped off like something alive while I waslooking at it." "That made you feel pretty bad," I observed casually. "Do yousuppose," he said, "that I was thinking of myself, with a hundred and sixty peopleat my back, all fast asleep in that fore-'tween-deck alone--and more of them aft;more on the deck--sleeping--knowing nothing about it--three times as many asthere were boats for, even if there had been time? I expected to see the ironopen out as I stood there and the rush of water going over them as they lay. . . .What could I do--what?"

'I can easily picture him to myself in the peopled gloom of the cavernous place,with the light of the globe-lamp falling on a small portion of the bulkhead that hadthe weight of the ocean on the other side, and the breathing of unconscioussleepers in his ears. I can see him glaring at the iron, startled by the falling rust,overburdened by the knowledge of an imminent death. This, I gathered, was thesecond time he had been sent forward by that skipper of his, who, I rather think,wanted to keep him away from the bridge. He told me that his first impulse was toshout and straightway make all those people leap out of sleep into terror; butsuch an overwhelming sense of his helplessness came over him that he was notable to produce a sound. This is, I suppose, what people mean by the tonguecleaving to the roof of the mouth. "Too dry," was the concise expression he usedin reference to this state. Without a sound, then, he scrambled out on deckthrough the number one hatch. A windsail rigged down there swung against himaccidentally, and he remembered that the light touch of the canvas on his facenearly knocked him off the hatchway ladder.

'He confessed that his knees wobbled a good deal as he stood on the foredecklooking at another sleeping crowd. The engines having been stopped by thattime, the steam was blowing off. Its deep rumble made the whole night vibratelike a bass string. The ship trembled to it.

'He saw here and there a head lifted off a mat, a vague form uprise in sittingposture, listen sleepily for a moment, sink down again into the billowy confusionof boxes, steam-winches, ventilators. He was aware all these people did notknow enough to take intelligent notice of that strange noise. The ship of iron, themen with white faces, all the sights, all the sounds, everything on board to thatignorant and pious multitude was strange alike, and as trustworthy as it would forever remain incomprehensible. It occurred to him that the fact was fortunate. Theidea of it was simply terrible.

'You must remember he believed, as any other man would have done in hisplace, that the ship would go down at any moment; the bulging, rust-eaten platesthat kept back the ocean, fatally must give way, all at once like an undermineddam, and let in a sudden and overwhelming flood. He stood still looking at theserecumbent bodies, a doomed man aware of his fate, surveying the silentcompany of the dead. They were dead! Nothing could save them! There wereboats enough for half of them perhaps, but there was no time. No time! No time!It did not seem worth while to open his lips, to stir hand or foot. Before he couldshout three words, or make three steps, he would be floundering in a seawhitened awfully by the desperate struggles of human beings, clamorous with thedistress of cries for help. There was no help. He imagined what would happenperfectly; he went through it all motionless by the hatchway with the lamp in hishand--he went through it to the very last harrowing detail. I think he went throughit again while he was telling me these things he could not tell the court.

' "I saw as clearly as I see you now that there was nothing I could do. It seemedto take all life out of my limbs. I thought I might just as well stand where I wasand wait. I did not think I had many seconds . . ." Suddenly the steam ceasedblowing off. The noise, he remarked, had been distracting, but the silence atonce became intolerably oppressive.

' "I thought I would choke before I got drowned," he said.

'He protested he did not think of saving himself. The only distinct thought formed,vanishing, and re-forming in his brain, was: eight hundred people and sevenboats; eight hundred people and seven boats.

' "Somebody was speaking aloud inside my head," he said a little wildly. "Eighthundred people and seven boats--and no time! Just think of it." He leanedtowards me across the little table, and I tried to avoid his stare. "Do you think Iwas afraid of death?" he asked in a voice very fierce and low. He brought downhis open hand with a bang that made the coffee-cups dance. "I am ready toswear I was not--I was not. . . . By God--no!" He hitched himself upright andcrossed his arms; his chin fell on his breast.

'The soft clashes of crockery reached us faintly through the high windows. Therewas a burst of voices, and several men came out in high good-humour into thegallery. They were exchanging jocular reminiscences of the donkeys in Cairo. Apale anxious youth stepping softly on long legs was being chaffed by a struttingand rubicund globe-trotter about his purchases in the bazaar. "No, really--do youthink I've been done to that extent?" he inquired very earnest and deliberate. Theband moved away, dropping into chairs as they went; matches flared, illuminatingfor a second faces without the ghost of an expression and the flat glaze of whiteshirt-fronts; the hum of many conversations animated with the ardour of feastingsounded to me absurd and infinitely remote.

' "Some of the crew were sleeping on the number one hatch within reach of myarm," began Jim again.

'You must know they kept Kalashee watch in that ship, all hands sleepingthrough the night, and only the reliefs of quartermasters and look-out men beingcalled. He was tempted to grip and shake the shoulder of the nearest lascar, buthe didn't. Something held his arms down along his sides. He was not afraid--ohno! only he just couldn't--that's all. He was not afraid of death perhaps, but I'll tellyou what, he was afraid of the emergency. His confounded imagination hadevoked for him all the horrors of panic, the trampling rush, the pitiful screams,boats swamped--all the appalling incidents of a disaster at sea he had ever heardof. He might have been resigned to die but I suspect he wanted to die withoutadded terrors, quietly, in a sort of peaceful trance. A certain readiness to perish isnot so very rare, but it is seldom that you meet men whose souls, steeled in theimpenetrable armour of resolution, are ready to fight a losing battle to the last;the desire of peace waxes stronger as hope declines, till at last it conquers thevery desire of life. Which of us here has not observed this, or maybe experiencedsomething of that feeling in his own person--this extreme weariness of emotions,the vanity of effort, the yearning for rest? Those striving with unreasonable forcesknow it well,--the shipwrecked castaways in boats, wanderers lost in a desert,men battling against the unthinking might of nature, or the stupid brutality ofcrowds.' Chapter 8

'How long he stood stock-still by the hatch expecting every moment to feel theship dip under his feet and the rush of water take him at the back and toss himlike a chip, I cannot say. Not very long--two minutes perhaps. A couple of men hecould not make out began to converse drowsily, and also, he could not tellwhere, he detected a curious noise of shuffling feet. Above these faint soundsthere was that awful stillness preceding a catastrophe, that trying silence of themoment before the crash; then it came into his head that perhaps he would havetime to rush along and cut all the lanyards of the gripes, so that the boats wouldfloat as the ship went down.

'The Patna had a long bridge, and all the boats were up there, four on one sideand three on the other--the smallest of them on the port-side and nearly abreastof the steering gear. He assured me, with evident anxiety to be believed, that hehad been most careful to keep them ready for instant service. He knew his duty. Idare say he was a good enough mate as far as that went. "I always believed inbeing prepared for the worst," he commented, staring anxiously in my face. Inodded my approval of the sound principle, averting my eyes before the subtleunsoundness of the man.

'He started unsteadily to run. He had to step over legs, avoid stumbling againstthe heads. Suddenly some one caught hold of his coat from below, and adistressed voice spoke under his elbow. The light of the lamp he carried in hisright hand fell upon an upturned dark face whose eyes entreated him togetherwith the voice. He had picked up enough of the language to understand the wordwater, repeated several times in a tone of insistence, of prayer, almost ofdespair. He gave a jerk to get away, and felt an arm embrace his leg.

' "The beggar clung to me like a drowning man," he said impressively. "Water,water! What water did he mean? What did he know? As calmly as I could Iordered him to let go. He was stopping me, time was pressing, other men beganto stir; I wanted time--time to cut the boats adrift. He got hold of my hand now,and I felt that he would begin to shout. It flashed upon me it was enough to starta panic, and I hauled off with my free arm and slung the lamp in his face. Theglass jingled, the light went out, but the blow made him let go, and I ran off--Iwanted to get at the boats; I wanted to get at the boats. He leaped after me frombehind. I turned on him. He would not keep quiet; he tried to shout; I had halfthrottled him before I made out what he wanted. He wanted some water--water todrink; they were on strict allowance, you know, and he had with him a young boyI had noticed several times. His child was sick--and thirsty. He had caught sightof me as I passed by, and was begging for a little water. That's all. We wereunder the bridge, in the dark. He kept on snatching at my wrists; there was nogetting rid of him. I dashed into my berth, grabbed my water-bottle, and thrust itinto his hands. He vanished. I didn't find out till then how much I was in want of adrink myself." He leaned on one elbow with a hand over his eyes.

'I felt a creepy sensation all down my backbone; there was something peculiar inall this. The fingers of the hand that shaded his brow trembled slightly. He brokethe short silence.

' "These things happen only once to a man and . . . Ah! well! When I got on thebridge at last the beggars were getting one of the boats off the chocks. A boat! Iwas running up the ladder when a heavy blow fell on my shoulder, just missingmy head. It didn't stop me, and the chief engineer--they had got him out of hisbunk by then--raised the boat-stretcher again. Somehow I had no mind to besurprised at anything. All this seemed natural--and awful-- and awful. I dodgedthat miserable maniac, lifted him off the deck as though he had been a little child,and he started whispering in my arms: 'Don't! don't! I thought you were one ofthem niggers.' I flung him away, he skidded along the bridge and knocked thelegs from under the little chap--the second. The skipper, busy about the boat,looked round and came at me head down, growling like a wild beast. I flinched nomore than a stone. I was as solid standing there as this," he tapped lightly withhis knuckles the wall beside his chair. "It was as though I had heard it all, seen itall, gone through it all twenty times already. I wasn't afraid of them. I drew backmy fist and he stopped short, muttering--

' " 'Ah! it's you. Lend a hand quick.'

' "That's what he said. Quick! As if anybody could be quick enough. 'Aren't yougoing to do something?' I asked. 'Yes. Clear out,' he snarled over his shoulder.

' "I don't think I understood then what he meant. The other two had pickedthemselves up by that time, and they rushed together to the boat. They tramped,they wheezed, they shoved, they cursed the boat, the ship, each other--cursedme. All in mutters. I didn't move, I didn't speak. I watched the slant of the ship.She was as still as if landed on the blocks in a dry dock--only she was like this,"He held up his hand, palm under, the tips of the fingers inclined downwards."Like this," he repeated. "I could see the line of the horizon before me, as clearas a bell, above her stem-head; I could see the water far off there black andsparkling, and still--still as a-pond, deadly still, more still than ever sea wasbefore--more still than I could bear to look at. Have you watched a ship floatinghead down, checked in sinking by a sheet of old iron too rotten to stand beingshored up? Have you? Oh yes, shored up? I thought of that--I thought of everymortal thing; but can you shore up a bulkhead in five minutes--or in fifty for thatmatter? Where was I going to get men that would go down below? And thetimber--the timber! Would you have had the courage to swing the maul for thefirst blow if you had seen that bulkhead? Don't say you would: you had not seenit; nobody would. Hang it--to do a thing like that you must believe there is achance, one in a thousand, at least, some ghost of a chance; and you would nothave believed. Nobody would have believed. You think me a cur for standingthere, but what would you have done? What! You can't tell--nobody can tell. Onemust have time to turn round. What would you have me do? Where was thekindness in making crazy with fright all those people I could not save single-handed--that nothing could save? Look here! As true as I sit on this chair beforeyou . . ."

'He drew quick breaths at every few words and shot quick glances at my face, asthough in his anguish he were watchful of the effect. He was not speaking to me,he was only speaking before me, in a dispute with an invisible personality, anantagonistic and inseparable partner of his existence--another possessor of hissoul. These were issues beyond the competency of a court of inquiry: it was asubtle and momentous quarrel as to the true essence of life, and did not want ajudge. He wanted an ally, a helper, an accomplice. I felt the risk I ran of beingcircumvented, blinded, decoyed, bullied, perhaps, into taking a definite part in adispute impossible of decision if one had to be fair to all the phantoms inpossession--to the reputable that had its claims and to the disreputable that hadits exigencies. I can't explain to you who haven't seen him and who hear hiswords only at second hand the mixed nature of my feelings. It seemed to me Iwas being made to comprehend the Inconceivable--and I know of nothing tocompare with the discomfort of such a sensation. I was made to look at theconvention that lurks in all truth and on the essential sincerity of falsehood. Heappealed to all sides at once--to the side turned perpetually to the light of day,and to that side of us which, like the other hemisphere of the moon, existsstealthily in perpetual darkness, with only a fearful ashy light falling at times onthe edge. He swayed me. I own to it, I own up. The occasion was obscure,insignificant--what you will: a lost youngster, one in a million--but then he wasone of us; an incident as completely devoid of importance as the flooding of anant-heap, and yet the mystery of his attitude got hold of me as though he hadbeen an individual in the forefront of his kind, as if the obscure truth involvedwere momentous enough to affect mankind's conception of itself. . . .'

Marlow paused to put new life into his expiring cheroot, seemed to forget allabout the story, and abruptly began again.

'My fault of course. One has no business really to get interested. It's a weaknessof mine. His was of another kind. My weakness consists in not having adiscriminating eye for the incidental--for the externals--no eye for the hod of therag-picker or the fine linen of the next man. Next man--that's it. I have met somany men,' he pursued, with momentary sadness--'met them too with a certain--certain--impact, let us say; like this fellow, for instance--and in each case all Icould see was merely the human being. A confounded democratic quality ofvision which may be better than total blindness, but has been of no advantage tome, I can assure you. Men expect one to take into account their fine linen. But Inever could get up any enthusiasm about these things. Oh! it's a failing; it's afailing; and then comes a soft evening; a lot of men too indolent for whist--and astory. . . .'

He paused again to wait for an encouraging remark, perhaps, but nobody spoke;only the host, as if reluctantly performing a duty, murmured--

'You are so subtle, Marlow.'

'Who? I?' said Marlow in a low voice. 'Oh no! But he was; and try as I may for thesuccess of this yarn, I am missing innumerable shades--they were so fine, sodifficult to render in colourless words. Because he complicated matters by beingso simple, too--the simplest poor devil! . . . By Jove! he was amazing. There hesat telling me that just as I saw him before my eyes he wouldn't be afraid to faceanything--and believing in it too. I tell you it was fabulously innocent and it wasenormous, enormous! I watched him covertly, just as though I had suspected himof an intention to take a jolly good rise out of me. He was confident that, on thesquare, "on the square, mind!" there was nothing he couldn't meet. Ever since hehad been "so high"--"quite a little chap," he had been preparing himself for all thedifficulties that can beset one on land and water. He confessed proudly to thiskind of foresight. He had been elaborating dangers and defences, expecting theworst, rehearsing his best. He must have led a most exalted existence. Can youfancy it? A succession of adventures, so much glory, such a victorious progress!and the deep sense of his sagacity crowning every day of his inner life. He forgothimself; his eyes shone; and with every word my heart, searched by the light ofhis absurdity, was growing heavier in my breast. I had no mind to laugh, and lestI should smile I made for myself a stolid face. He gave signs of irritation.

' "It is always the unexpected that happens," I said in a propitiatory tone. Myobtuseness provoked him into a contemptuous "Pshaw!" I suppose he meant thatthe unexpected couldn't touch him; nothing less than the unconceivable itselfcould get over his perfect state of preparation. He had been taken unawares--and he whispered to himself a malediction upon the waters and the firmament,upon the ship, upon the men. Everything had betrayed him! He had been trickedinto that sort of high-minded resignation which prevented him lifting as much ashis little finger, while these others who had a very clear perception of the actualnecessity were tumbling against each other and sweating desperately over thatboat business. Something had gone wrong there at the last moment. It appearsthat in their flurry they had contrived in some mysterious way to get the slidingbolt of the foremost boat-chock jammed tight, and forthwith had gone out of theremnants of their minds over the deadly nature of that accident. It must havebeen a pretty sight, the fierce industry of these beggars toiling on a motionlessship that floated quietly in the silence of a world asleep, fighting against time forthe freeing of that boat, grovelling on all-fours, standing up in despair, tugging,pushing, snarling at each other venomously, ready to kill, ready to weep, andonly kept from flying at each other's throats by the fear of death that stood silentbehind them like an inflexible and cold-eyed taskmaster. Oh yes! It must havebeen a pretty sight. He saw it all, he could talk about it with scorn and bitterness;he had a minute knowledge of it by means of some sixth sense, I conclude,because he swore to me he had remained apart without a glance at them and atthe boat--without one single glance. And I believe him. I should think he was toobusy watching the threatening slant of the ship, the suspended menacediscovered in the midst of the most perfect security--fascinated by the swordhanging by a hair over his imaginative head.

'Nothing in the world moved before his eyes, and he could depict to himselfwithout hindrance the sudden swing upwards of the dark sky-line, the sudden tiltup of the vast plain of the sea, the swift still rise, the brutal fling, the grasp of theabyss, the struggle without hope, the starlight closing over his head for ever likethe vault of a tomb--the revolt of his young life--the black end. He could! By Jove!who couldn't? And you must remember he was a finished artist in that peculiarway, he was a gifted poor devil with the faculty of swift and forestalling vision.The sights it showed him had turned him into cold stone from the soles of his feetto the nape of his neck; but there was a hot dance of thoughts in his head, adance of lame, blind, mute thoughts--a whirl of awful cripples. Didn't I tell you heconfessed himself before me as though I had the power to bind and to loose? Heburrowed deep, deep, in the hope of my absolution, which would have been of nogood to him. This was one of those cases which no solemn deception canpalliate, where no man can help; where his very Maker seems to abandon asinner to his own devices.

'He stood on the starboard side of the bridge, as far as he could get from thestruggle for the boat, which went on with the agitation of madness and thestealthiness of a conspiracy. The two Malays had meantime remained holding tothe wheel. Just picture to yourselves the actors in that, thank God! unique,episode of the sea, four beside themselves with fierce and secret exertions, andthree looking on in complete immobility, above the awnings covering theprofound ignorance of hundreds of human beings, with their weariness, with theirdreams, with their hopes, arrested, held by an invisible hand on the brink ofannihilation. For that they were so, makes no doubt to me: given the state of theship, this was the deadliest possible description of accident that could happen.These beggars by the boat had every reason to go distracted with funk. Frankly,had I been there, I would not have given as much as a counterfeit farthing for theship's chance to keep above water to the end of each successive second. Andstill she floated! These sleeping pilgrims were destined to accomplish their wholepilgrimage to the bitterness of some other end. It was as if the Omnipotencewhose mercy they confessed had needed their humble testimony on earth for awhile longer, and had looked down to make a sign, "Thou shalt not!" to theocean. Their escape would trouble me as a prodigiously inexplicable event, did Inot know how tough old iron can be--as tough sometimes as the spirit of somemen we meet now and then, worn to a shadow and breasting the weight of life.Not the least wonder of these twenty minutes, to my mind, is the behaviour of thetwo helmsmen. They were amongst the native batch of all sorts brought overfrom Aden to give evidence at the inquiry. One of them, labouring under intensebashfulness, was very young, and with his smooth, yellow, cheery countenancelooked even younger than he was. I remember perfectly Brierly asking him,through the interpreter, what he thought of it at the time, and the interpreter, aftera short colloquy, turning to the court with an important air--

' "He says he thought nothing."

'The other, with patient blinking eyes, a blue cotton handkerchief, faded withmuch washing, bound with a smart twist over a lot of grey wisps, his face shrunkinto grim hollows, his brown skin made darker by a mesh of wrinkles, explainedthat he had a knowledge of some evil thing befalling the ship, but there had beenno order; he could not remember an order; why should he leave the helm? Tosome further questions he jerked back his spare shoulders, and declared it nevercame into his mind then that the white men were about to leave the ship throughfear of death. He did not believe it now. There might have been secret reasons.He wagged his old chin knowingly. Aha! secret reasons. He was a man of greatexperience, and he wanted that white Tuan to know--he turned towards Brierly,who didn't raise his head--that he had acquired a knowledge of many things byserving white men on the sea for a great number of years--and, suddenly, withshaky excitement he poured upon our spellbound attention a lot of queer-sounding names, names of dead-and-gone skippers, names of forgotten countryships, names of familiar and distorted sound, as if the hand of dumb time hadbeen at work on them for ages. They stopped him at last. A silence fell upon thecourt,--a silence that remained unbroken for at least a minute, and passed gentlyinto a deep murmur. This episode was the sensation of the second day'sproceedings--affecting all the audience, affecting everybody except Jim, who wassitting moodily at the end of the first bench, and never looked up at thisextraordinary and damning witness that seemed possessed of some mysterioustheory of defence.

'So these two lascars stuck to the helm of that ship without steerage-way, wheredeath would have found them if such had been their destiny. The whites did notgive them half a glance, had probably forgotten their existence. Assuredly Jim didnot remember it. He remembered he could do nothing; he could do nothing, nowhe was alone. There was nothing to do but to sink with the ship. No use making adisturbance about it. Was there? He waited upstanding, without a sound,stiffened in the idea of some sort of heroic discretion. The first engineer rancautiously across the bridge to tug at his sleeve.

' "Come and help! For God's sake, come and help!"

'He ran back to the boat on the points of his toes, and returned directly to worryat his sleeve, begging and cursing at the same time.' "I believe he would have kissed my hands," said Jim savagely, "and, nextmoment, he starts foaming and whispering in my face, 'If I had the time I wouldlike to crack your skull for you.' I pushed him away. Suddenly he caught hold ofme round the neck. Damn him! I hit him. I hit out without looking. 'Won't you saveyour own life--you infernal coward?' he sobs. Coward! He called me an infernalcoward! Ha! ha! ha! ha! He called me--ha! ha! ha! . . ."

'He had thrown himself back and was shaking with laughter. I had never in my lifeheard anything so bitter as that noise. It fell like a blight on all the merrimentabout donkeys, pyramids, bazaars, or what not. Along the whole dim length ofthe gallery the voices dropped, the pale blotches of faces turned our way withone accord, and the silence became so profound that the clear tinkle of ateaspoon falling on the tesselated floor of the verandah rang out like a tiny andsilvery scream.

' "You mustn't laugh like this, with all these people about," I remonstrated. "It isn'tnice for them, you know."

'He gave no sign of having heard at first, but after a while, with a stare that,missing me altogether, seemed to probe the heart of some awful vision, hemuttered carelessly--"Oh! they'll think I am drunk."

'And after that you would have thought from his appearance he would nevermake a sound again. But--no fear! He could no more stop telling now than hecould have stopped living by the mere exertion of his will.' Chapter 9

' "I was saying to myself, 'Sink--curse you! Sink!' " These were the words withwhich he began again. He wanted it over. He was severely left alone, and heformulated in his head this address to the ship in a tone of imprecation, while atthe same time he enjoyed the privilege of witnessing scenes--as far as I canjudge--of low comedy. They were still at that bolt. The skipper was ordering, "Getunder and try to lift"; and the others naturally shirked. You understand that to besqueezed flat under the keel of a boat wasn't a desirable position to be caught inif the ship went down suddenly. "Why don't you--you the strongest?" whined thelittle engineer. "Gott-for-dam! I am too thick," spluttered the skipper in despair. Itwas funny enough to make angels weep. They stood idle for a moment, andsuddenly the chief engineer rushed again at Jim.

'And at last Jim looked astern where the other pointed with maniacal insistence.He saw a silent black squall which had eaten up already one-third of the sky. Youknow how these squalls come up there about that time of the year. First you seea darkening of the horizon--no more; then a cloud rises opaque like a wall. Astraight edge of vapour lined with sickly whitish gleams flies up from thesouthwest, swallowing the stars in whole constellations; its shadow flies over thewaters, and confounds sea and sky into one abyss of obscurity. And all is still. Nothunder, no wind, no sound; not a flicker of lightning. Then in the tenebrousimmensity a livid arch appears; a swell or two like undulations of the verydarkness run past, and suddenly, wind and rain strike together with a peculiarimpetuosity as if they had burst through something solid. Such a cloud had comeup while they weren't looking. They had just noticed it, and were perfectly justifiedin surmising that if in absolute stillness there was some chance for the ship tokeep afloat a few minutes longer, the least disturbance of the sea would make anend of her instantly. Her first nod to the swell that precedes the burst of such asquall would be also her last, would become a plunge, would, so to speak, beprolonged into a long dive, down, down to the bottom. Hence these new capersof their fright, these new antics in which they displayed their extreme aversion todie.

' "It was black, black," pursued Jim with moody steadiness. "It had sneaked uponus from behind. The infernal thing! I suppose there had been at the back of myhead some hope yet. I don't know. But that was all over anyhow. It maddened meto see myself caught like this. I was angry, as though I had been trapped. I wastrapped! The night was hot, too, I remember. Not a breath of air."'He remembered so well that, gasping in the chair, he seemed to sweat andchoke before my eyes. No doubt it maddened him; it knocked him over afresh--ina manner of speaking--but it made him also remember that important purposewhich had sent him rushing on that bridge only to slip clean out of his mind. Hehad intended to cut the lifeboats clear of the ship. He whipped out his knife andwent to work slashing as though he had seen nothing, had heard nothing, hadknown of no one on board. They thought him hopelessly wrong-headed andcrazy, but dared not protest noisily against this useless loss of time. When hehad done he returned to the very same spot from which he had started. The chiefwas there, ready with a clutch at him to whisper close to his head, scathingly, asthough he wanted to bite his ear--

' "You silly fool! do you think you'll get the ghost of a show when all that lot ofbrutes is in the water? Why, they will batter your head for you from these boats."

'He wrung his hands, ignored, at Jim's elbow. The skipper kept up a nervousshuffle in one place and mumbled, "Hammer! hammer! Mein Gott! Get ahammer."

'The little engineer whimpered like a child, but, broken arm and all, he turned outthe least craven of the lot as it seems, and, actually, mustered enough pluck torun an errand to the engine-room. No trifle, it must be owned in fairness to him.Jim told me he darted desperate looks like a cornered man, gave one low wail,and dashed off. He was back instantly clambering, hammer in hand, and withouta pause flung himself at the bolt. The others gave up Jim at once and ran off toassist. He heard the tap, tap of the hammer, the sound of the released chockfalling over. The boat was clear. Only then he turned to look--only then. But hekept his distance--he kept his distance. He wanted me to know he had kept hisdistance; that there was nothing in common between him and these men--whohad the hammer. Nothing whatever. It is more than probable he thought himselfcut off from them by a space that could not be traversed, by an obstacle thatcould not be overcome, by a chasm without bottom. He was as far as he couldget from them--the whole breadth of the ship.

'His feet were glued to that remote spot and his eyes to their indistinct groupbowed together and swaying strangely in the common torment of fear. A hand-lamp lashed to a stanchion above a little table rigged up on the bridge--the Patnahad no chart-room amidships--threw a light on their labouring shoulders, on theirarched and bobbing backs. They pushed at the bow of the boat; they pushed outinto the night; they pushed, and would no more look back at him. They had givenhim up as if indeed he had been too far, too hopelessly separated fromthemselves, to be worth an appealing word, a glance, or a sign. They had noleisure to look back upon his passive heroism, to feel the sting of his abstention.The boat was heavy; they pushed at the bow with no breath to spare for anencouraging word: but the turmoil of terror that had scattered their self-commandlike chaff before the wind, converted their desperate exertions into a bit of fooling,upon my word, fit for knockabout clowns in a farce. They pushed with theirhands, with their heads, they pushed for dear life with all the weight of theirbodies, they pushed with all the might of their souls--only no sooner had theysucceeded in canting the stem clear of the davit than they would leave off likeone man and start a wild scramble into her. As a natural consequence the boatwould swing in abruptly, driving them back, helpless and jostling against eachother. They would stand nonplussed for a while, exchanging in fierce whispers allthe infamous names they could call to mind, and go at it again. Three times thisoccurred. He described it to me with morose thoughtfulness. He hadn't lost asingle movement of that comic business. "I loathed them. I hated them. I had tolook at all that," he said without emphasis, turning upon me a sombrely watchfulglance. "Was ever there any one so shamefully tried?"

'He took his head in his hands for a moment, like a man driven to distraction bysome unspeakable outrage. These were things he could not explain to the court--and not even to me; but I would have been little fitted for the reception of hisconfidences had I not been able at times to understand the pauses between thewords. In this assault upon his fortitude there was the jeering intention of aspiteful and vile vengeance; there was an element of burlesque in his ordeal--adegradation of funny grimaces in the approach of death or dishonour.

'He related facts which I have not forgotten, but at this distance of time I couldn'trecall his very words: I only remember that he managed wonderfully to conveythe brooding rancour of his mind into the bare recital of events. Twice, he toldme, he shut his eyes in the certitude that the end was upon him already, andtwice he had to open them again. Each time he noted the darkening of the greatstillness. The shadow of the silent cloud had fallen upon the ship from the zenith,and seemed to have extinguished every sound of her teeming life. He could nolonger hear the voices under the awnings. He told me that each time he closedhis eyes a flash of thought showed him that crowd of bodies, laid out for death,as plain as daylight. When he opened them, it was to see the dim struggle of fourmen fighting like mad with a stubborn boat. "They would fall back before it timeafter time, stand swearing at each other, and suddenly make another rush in abunch. . . . Enough to make you die laughing," he commented with downcasteyes; then raising them for a moment to my face with a dismal smile, "I ought tohave a merry life of it, by God! for I shall see that funny sight a good many timesyet before I die." His eyes fell again. "See and hear. . . . See and hear," herepeated twice, at long intervals, filled by vacant staring.

'He roused himself.

' "I made up my mind to keep my eyes shut," he said, "and I couldn't. I couldn't,and I don't care who knows it. Let them go through that kind of thing before theytalk. Just let them--and do better--that's all. The second time my eyelids flewopen and my mouth too. I had felt the ship move. She just dipped her bows--andlifted them gently--and slow! everlastingly slow; and ever so little. She hadn'tdone that much for days. The cloud had raced ahead, and this first swell seemedto travel upon a sea of lead. There was no life in that stir. It managed, though, toknock over something in my head. What would you have done? You are sure ofyourself--aren't you? What would you do if you felt now--this minute--the househere move, just move a little under your chair. Leap! By heavens! you would takeone spring from where you sit and land in that clump of bushes yonder."

'He flung his arm out at the night beyond the stone balustrade. I held my peace.He looked at me very steadily, very severe. There could be no mistake: I wasbeing bullied now, and it behoved me to make no sign lest by a gesture or a wordI should be drawn into a fatal admission about myself which would have hadsome bearing on the case. I was not disposed to take any risk of that sort. Don'tforget I had him before me, and really he was too much like one of us not to bedangerous. But if you want to know I don't mind telling you that I did, with a rapidglance, estimate the distance to the mass of denser blackness in the middle ofthe grass-plot before the verandah. He exaggerated. I would have landed shortby several feet--and that's the only thing of which I am fairly certain.

'The last moment had come, as he thought, and he did not move. His feetremained glued to the planks if his thoughts were knocking about loose in hishead. It was at this moment too that he saw one of the men around the boat stepbackwards suddenly, clutch at the air with raised arms, totter and collapse. Hedidn't exactly fall, he only slid gently into a sitting posture, all hunched up, andwith his shoulders propped against the side of the engine-room skylight. "Thatwas the donkey-man. A haggard, white-faced chap with a ragged moustache.Acted third engineer," he explained.

' "Dead," I said. We had heard something of that in court.

' "So they say," he pronounced with sombre indifference. "Of course I neverknew. Weak heart. The man had been complaining of being out of sorts for sometime before. Excitement. Over-exertion. Devil only knows. Ha! ha! ha! It was easyto see he did not want to die either. Droll, isn't it? May I be shot if he hadn't beenfooled into killing himself! Fooled--neither more nor less. Fooled into it, byheavens! just as I . . . Ah! If he had only kept still; if he had only told them to go tothe devil when they came to rush him out of his bunk because the ship wassinking! If he had only stood by with his hands in his pockets and called themnames!"

'He got up, shook his fist, glared at me, and sat down.

' "A chance missed, eh?" I murmured.

' "Why don't you laugh?" he said. "A joke hatched in hell. Weak heart! . . . I wishsometimes mine had been."'This irritated me. "Do you?" I exclaimed with deep-rooted irony. "Yes! Can't youunderstand?" he cried. "I don't know what more you could wish for," I said angrily.He gave me an utterly uncomprehending glance. This shaft had also gone wideof the mark, and he was not the man to bother about stray arrows. Upon myword, he was too unsuspecting; he was not fair game. I was glad that my missilehad been thrown away,--that he had not even heard the twang of the bow.

'Of course he could not know at the time the man was dead. The next minute--hislast on board--was crowded with a tumult of events and sensations which beatabout him like the sea upon a rock. I use the simile advisedly, because from hisrelation I am forced to believe he had preserved through it all a strange illusion ofpassiveness, as though he had not acted but had suffered himself to be handledby the infernal powers who had selected him for the victim of their practical joke.The first thing that came to him was the grinding surge of the heavy davitsswinging out at last--a jar which seemed to enter his body from the deck throughthe soles of his feet, and travel up his spine to the crown of his head. Then, thesquall being very near now, another and a heavier swell lifted the passive hull ina threatening heave that checked his breath, while his brain and his hearttogether were pierced as with daggers by panic-stricken screams. "Let go! ForGod's sake, let go! Let go! She's going." Following upon that the boat-falls rippedthrough the blocks, and a lot of men began to talk in startled tones under theawnings. "When these beggars did break out, their yelps were enough to wakethe dead," he said. Next, after the splashing shock of the boat literally dropped inthe water, came the hollow noises of stamping and tumbling in her, mingled withconfused shouts: "Unhook! Unhook! Shove! Unhook! Shove for your life! Here'sthe squall down on us. . . ." He heard, high above his head, the faint muttering ofthe wind; he heard below his feet a cry of pain. A lost voice alongside startedcursing a swivel hook. The ship began to buzz fore and aft like a disturbed hive,and, as quietly as he was telling me of all this--because just then he was veryquiet in attitude, in face, in voice--he went on to say without the slightest warningas it were, "I stumbled over his legs."

'This was the first I heard of his having moved at all. I could not restrain a grunt ofsurprise. Something had started him off at last, but of the exact moment, of thecause that tore him out of his immobility, he knew no more than the uprooted treeknows of the wind that laid it low. All this had come to him: the sounds, thesights, the legs of the dead man--by Jove! The infernal joke was being crammeddevilishly down his throat, but--look you--he was not going to admit of any sort ofswallowing motion in his gullet. It's extraordinary how he could cast upon you thespirit of his illusion. I listened as if to a tale of black magic at work upon a corpse.

' "He went over sideways, very gently, and this is the last thing I rememberseeing on board," he continued. "I did not care what he did. It looked as thoughhe were picking himself up: I thought he was picking himself up, of course: Iexpected him to bolt past me over the rail and drop into the boat after the others.I could hear them knocking about down there, and a voice as if crying up a shaftcalled out 'George!' Then three voices together raised a yell. They came to meseparately: one bleated, another screamed, one howled. Ough!"

'He shivered a little, and I beheld him rise slowly as if a steady hand from abovehad been pulling him out of the chair by his hair. Up, slowly--to his full height, andwhen his knees had locked stiff the hand let him go, and he swayed a little on hisfeet. There was a suggestion of awful stillness in his face, in his movements, inhis very voice when he said "They shouted"--and involuntarily I pricked up myears for the ghost of that shout that would be heard directly through the falseeffect of silence. "There were eight hundred people in that ship," he said,impaling me to the back of my seat with an awful blank stare. "Eight hundredliving people, and they were yelling after the one dead man to come down and besaved. 'Jump, George! Jump! Oh, jump!' I stood by with my hand on the davit. Iwas very quiet. It had come over pitch dark. You could see neither sky nor sea. Iheard the boat alongside go bump, bump, and not another sound down there fora while, but the ship under me was full of talking noises. Suddenly the skipperhowled 'Mein Gott! The squall! The squall! Shove off!' With the first hiss of rain,and the first gust of wind, they screamed, 'Jump, George! We'll catch you! Jump!'The ship began a slow plunge; the rain swept over her like a broken sea; my capflew off my head; my breath was driven back into my throat. I heard as if I hadbeen on the top of a tower another wild screech, 'Geo-o-o-orge! Oh, jump!' Shewas going down, down, head first under me. . . ."

'He raised his hand deliberately to his face, and made picking motions with hisfingers as though he had been bothered with cobwebs, and afterwards he lookedinto the open palm for quite half a second before he blurted out--

'His clear blue eyes turned to me with a piteous stare, and looking at himstanding before me, dumfounded and hurt, I was oppressed by a sad sense ofresigned wisdom, mingled with the amused and profound pity of an old manhelpless before a childish disaster.

' "Looks like it," I muttered.

' "I knew nothing about it till I looked up," he explained hastily. And that'spossible, too. You had to listen to him as you would to a small boy in trouble. Hedidn't know. It had happened somehow. It would never happen again. He hadlanded partly on somebody and fallen across a thwart. He felt as though all hisribs on his left side must be broken; then he rolled over, and saw vaguely theship he had deserted uprising above him, with the red side-light glowing large inthe rain like a fire on the brow of a hill seen through a mist. "She seemed higherthan a wall; she loomed like a cliff over the boat . . . I wished I could die," hecried. "There was no going back. It was as if I had jumped into a well--into aneverlasting deep hole. . . ." ' Chapter 10

'He locked his fingers together and tore them apart. Nothing could be more true:he had indeed jumped into an everlasting deep hole. He had tumbled from aheight he could never scale again. By that time the boat had gone driving forwardpast the bows. It was too dark just then for them to see each other, and,moreover, they were blinded and half drowned with rain. He told me it was likebeing swept by a flood through a cavern. They turned their backs to the squall;the skipper, it seems, got an oar over the stern to keep the boat before it, and fortwo or three minutes the end of the world had come through a deluge in a pitchyblackness. The sea hissed "like twenty thousand kettles." That's his simile, notmine. I fancy there was not much wind after the first gust; and he himself hadadmitted at the inquiry that the sea never got up that night to any extent. Hecrouched down in the bows and stole a furtive glance back. He saw just oneyellow gleam of the mast-head light high up and blurred like a last star ready todissolve. "It terrified me to see it still there," he said. That's what he said. Whatterrified him was the thought that the drowning was not over yet. No doubt hewanted to be done with that abomination as quickly as possible. Nobody in theboat made a sound. In the dark she seemed to fly, but of course she could nothave had much way. Then the shower swept ahead, and the great, distracting,hissing noise followed the rain into distance and died out. There was nothing tobe heard then but the slight wash about the boat's sides. Somebody's teeth werechattering violently. A hand touched his back. A faint voice said, "You there?"Another cried out shakily, "She's gone!" and they all stood up together to lookastern. They saw no lights. All was black. A thin cold drizzle was driving into theirfaces. The boat lurched slightly. The teeth chattered faster, stopped, and beganagain twice before the man could master his shiver sufficiently to say, "Ju-ju-st inti-ti-me. . . . Brrrr." He recognised the voice of the chief engineer saying surlily, "Isaw her go down. I happened to turn my head." The wind had dropped almostcompletely.

'They watched in the dark with their heads half turned to windward as if expectingto hear cries. At first he was thankful the night had covered up the scene beforehis eyes, and then to know of it and yet to have seen and heard nothingappeared somehow the culminating point of an awful misfortune. "Strange, isn'tit?" he murmured, interrupting himself in his disjointed narrative.

'It did not seem so strange to me. He must have had an unconscious convictionthat the reality could not be half as bad, not half as anguishing, appalling, andvengeful as the created terror of his imagination. I believe that, in this firstmoment, his heart was wrung with all the suffering, that his soul knew theaccumulated savour of all the fear, all the horror, all the despair of eight hundredhuman beings pounced upon in the night by a sudden and violent death, elsewhy should he have said, "It seemed to me that I must jump out of that accursedboat and swim back to see--half a mile--more --any distance--to the very spot . .."? Why this impulse? Do you see the significance? Why back to the very spot?Why not drown alongside--if he meant drowning? Why back to the very spot, tosee--as if his imagination had to be soothed by the assurance that all was overbefore death could bring relief? I defy any one of you to offer anotherexplanation. It was one of those bizarre and exciting glimpses through the fog. Itwas an extraordinary disclosure. He let it out as the most natural thing one couldsay. He fought down that impulse and then he became conscious of the silence.He mentioned this to me. A silence of the sea, of the sky, merged into oneindefinite immensity still as death around these saved, palpitating lives. "Youmight have heard a pin drop in the boat," he said with a queer contraction of hislips, like a man trying to master his sensibilities while relating some extremelymoving fact. A silence! God alone, who had willed him as he was, knows what hemade of it in his heart. "I didn't think any spot on earth could be so still," he said."You couldn't distinguish the sea from the sky; there was nothing to see andnothing to hear. Not a glimmer, not a shape, not a sound. You could havebelieved that every bit of dry land had gone to the bottom; that every man onearth but I and these beggars in the boat had got drowned." He leaned over thetable with his knuckles propped amongst coffee-cups, liqueur-glasses, cigar-ends. "I seemed to believe it. Everything was gone and--all was over . . ." hefetched a deep sigh . . . "with me." '

Marlow sat up abruptly and flung away his cheroot with force. It made a dartingred trail like a toy rocket fired through the drapery of creepers. Nobody stirred.

'Hey, what do you think of it?' he cried with sudden animation. 'Wasn't he true tohimself, wasn't he? His saved life was over for want of ground under his feet, forwant of sights for his eyes, for want of voices in his ears. Annihilation--hey! Andall the time it was only a clouded sky, a sea that did not break, the air that did notstir. Only a night; only a silence.

'It lasted for a while, and then they were suddenly and unanimously moved tomake a noise over their escape. "I knew from the first she would go." "Not aminute too soon." "A narrow squeak, b'gosh!" He said nothing, but the breezethat had dropped came back, a gentle draught freshened steadily, and the seajoined its murmuring voice to this talkative reaction succeeding the dumbmoments of awe. She was gone! She was gone! Not a doubt of it. Nobody couldhave helped. They repeated the same words over and over again as though theycouldn't stop themselves. Never doubted she would go. The lights were gone. Nomistake. The lights were gone. Couldn't expect anything else. She had to go. . . .He noticed that they talked as though they had left behind them nothing but anempty ship. They concluded she would not have been long when she oncestarted. It seemed to cause them some sort of satisfaction. They assured eachother that she couldn't have been long about it--"Just shot down like a flat-iron."The chief engineer declared that the mast-head light at the moment of sinkingseemed to drop "like a lighted match you throw down." At this the secondlaughed hysterically. "I am g-g-glad, I am gla-a-a-d." His teeth went on "like anelectric rattle," said Jim, "and all at once he began to cry. He wept and blubberedlike a child, catching his breath and sobbing 'Oh dear! oh dear! oh dear!' Hewould be quiet for a while and start suddenly, 'Oh, my poor arm! oh, my poor a-a-a-arm!' I felt I could knock him down. Some of them sat in the stern-sheets. Icould just make out their shapes. Voices came to me, mumble, mumble, grunt,grunt. All this seemed very hard to bear. I was cold too. And I could do nothing. Ithought that if I moved I would have to go over the side and . . ."

'His hand groped stealthily, came in contact with a liqueur-glass, and waswithdrawn suddenly as if it had touched a red-hot coal. I pushed the bottleslightly. "Won't you have some more?" I asked. He looked at me angrily. "Don'tyou think I can tell you what there is to tell without screwing myself up?" heasked. The squad of globe-trotters had gone to bed. We were alone but for avague white form erect in the shadow, that, being looked at, cringed forward,hesitated, backed away silently. It was getting late, but I did not hurry my guest.

'In the midst of his forlorn state he heard his companions begin to abuse someone. "What kept you from jumping, you lunatic?" said a scolding voice. The chiefengineer left the stern-sheets, and could be heard clambering forward as if withhostile intentions against "the greatest idiot that ever was." The skipper shoutedwith rasping effort offensive epithets from where he sat at the oar. He lifted hishead at that uproar, and heard the name "George," while a hand in the darkstruck him on the breast. "What have you got to say for yourself, you fool?"queried somebody, with a sort of virtuous fury. "They were after me," he said."They were abusing me--abusing me . . . by the name of George."

'He paused to stare, tried to smile, turned his eyes away and went on. "That littlesecond puts his head right under my nose, 'Why, it's that blasted mate!' 'What!'howls the skipper from the other end of the boat. 'No!' shrieks the chief. And hetoo stooped to look at my face."

'The wind had left the boat suddenly. The rain began to fall again, and the soft,uninterrupted, a little mysterious sound with which the sea receives a showerarose on all sides in the night. "They were too taken aback to say anything moreat first," he narrated steadily, "and what could I have to say to them?" He falteredfor a moment, and made an effort to go on. "They called me horrible names." Hisvoice, sinking to a whisper, now and then would leap up suddenly, hardened bythe passion of scorn, as though he had been talking of secret abominations."Never mind what they called me," he said grimly. "I could hear hate in theirvoices. A good thing too. They could not forgive me for being in that boat. Theyhated it. It made them mad. . . ." He laughed short. . . . "But it kept me from--Look! I was sitting with my arms crossed, on the gunwale! . . ." He perchedhimself smartly on the edge of the table and crossed his arms. . . . "Like this--see? One little tilt backwards and I would have been gone--after the others. Onelittle tilt--the least bit--the least bit." He frowned, and tapping his forehead with thetip of his middle finger, "It was there all the time," he said impressively.

' "All the time--that notion. And the rain--cold, thick, cold as melted snow--colder--on my thin cotton clothes--I'll never be so cold again in my life, I know. And thesky was black too--all black. Not a star, not a light anywhere. Nothing outside thatconfounded boat and those two yapping before me like a couple of meanmongrels at a tree'd thief. Yap! yap! 'What you doing here? You're a fine sort!Too much of a bloomin' gentleman to put your hand to it. Come out of yourtrance, did you? To sneak in? Did you?' Yap! yap! 'You ain't fit to live!' Yap! yap!Two of them together trying to out-bark each other. The other would bay from thestern through the rain--couldn't see him--couldn't make it out--some of his filthyjargon. Yap! yap! Bow-ow-ow-ow-ow! Yap! yap! It was sweet to hear them; it keptme alive, I tell you. It saved my life. At it they went, as if trying to drive meoverboard with the noise! . . . 'I wonder you had pluck enough to jump. You ain'twanted here. If I had known who it was, I would have tipped you over--you skunk!What have you done with the other? Where did you get the pluck to jump--youcoward? What's to prevent us three from firing you overboard?' . . . They wereout of breath; the shower passed away upon the sea. Then nothing. There wasnothing round the boat, not even a sound. Wanted to see me overboard, didthey? Upon my soul! I think they would have had their wish if they had only keptquiet. Fire me overboard! Would they? 'Try,' I said. 'I would for twopence.' 'Toogood for you,' they screeched together. It was so dark that it was only when oneor the other of them moved that I was quite sure of seeing him. By heavens! Ionly wish they had tried."

'I couldn't help exclaiming, "What an extraordinary affair!"

' "Not bad--eh?" he said, as if in some sort astounded. "They pretended to think Ihad done away with that donkey-man for some reason or other. Why should I?And how the devil was I to know? Didn't I get somehow into that boat? into thatboat--I . . ." The muscles round his lips contracted into an unconscious grimacethat tore through the mask of his usual expression--something violent, short-livedand illuminating like a twist of lightning that admits the eye for an instant into thesecret convolutions of a cloud. "I did. I was plainly there with them--wasn't I? Isn'tit awful a man should be driven to do a thing like that--and be responsible? Whatdid I know about their George they were howling after? I remembered I had seenhim curled up on the deck. 'Murdering coward!' the chief kept on calling me. Hedidn't seem able to remember any other two words. I didn't care, only his noisebegan to worry me. 'Shut up,' I said. At that he collected himself for a confoundedscreech. 'You killed him! You killed him!' 'No,' I shouted, 'but I will kill you directly.'I jumped up, and he fell backwards over a thwart with an awful loud thump. Idon't know why. Too dark. Tried to step back I suppose. I stood still facing aft,and the wretched little second began to whine, 'You ain't going to hit a chap witha broken arm--and you call yourself a gentleman, too.' I heard a heavy tramp--one--two--and wheezy grunting. The other beast was coming at me, clattering hisoar over the stern. I saw him moving, big, big--as you see a man in a mist, in adream. 'Come on,' I cried. I would have tumbled him over like a bale of shakings.He stopped, muttered to himself, and went back. Perhaps he had heard the wind.I didn't. It was the last heavy gust we had. He went back to his oar. I was sorry. Iwould have tried to--to . . ."

'He opened and closed his curved fingers, and his hands had an eager and cruelflutter. "Steady, steady," I murmured.

' "Eh? What? I am not excited," he remonstrated, awfully hurt, and with aconvulsive jerk of his elbow knocked over the cognac bottle. I started forward,scraping my chair. He bounced off the table as if a mine had been explodedbehind his back, and half turned before he alighted, crouching on his feet to showme a startled pair of eyes and a face white about the nostrils. A look of intenseannoyance succeeded. "Awfully sorry. How clumsy of me!" he mumbled, veryvexed, while the pungent odour of spilt alcohol enveloped us suddenly with anatmosphere of a low drinking-bout in the cool, pure darkness of the night. Thelights had been put out in the dining-hall; our candle glimmered solitary in thelong gallery, and the columns had turned black from pediment to capital. On thevivid stars the high corner of the Harbour Office stood out distinct across theEsplanade, as though the sombre pile had glided nearer to see and hear.

'He assumed an air of indifference.

' "I dare say I am less calm now than I was then. I was ready for anything. Thesewere trifles. . . ."

' "You had a lively time of it in that boat," I remarked

' "I was ready," he repeated. "After the ship's lights had gone, anything mighthave happened in that boat--anything in the world--and the world no wiser. I feltthis, and I was pleased. It was just dark enough too. We were like men walled upquick in a roomy grave. No concern with anything on earth. Nobody to pass anopinion. Nothing mattered." For the third time during this conversation he laughedharshly, but there was no one about to suspect him of being only drunk. "No fear,no law, no sounds, no eyes--not even our own, till--till sunrise at least."

'I was struck by the suggestive truth of his words. There is something peculiar ina small boat upon the wide sea. Over the lives borne from under the shadow ofdeath there seems to fall the shadow of madness. When your ship fails you, yourwhole world seems to fail you; the world that made you, restrained you, took careof you. It is as if the souls of men floating on an abyss and in touch withimmensity had been set free for any excess of heroism, absurdity, orabomination. Of course, as with belief, thought, love, hate, conviction, or eventhe visual aspect of material things, there are as many shipwrecks as there aremen, and in this one there was something abject which made the isolation morecomplete--there was a villainy of circumstances that cut these men off morecompletely from the rest of mankind, whose ideal of conduct had neverundergone the trial of a fiendish and appalling joke. They were exasperated withhim for being a half-hearted shirker: he focussed on them his hatred of the wholething; he would have liked to take a signal revenge for the abhorrent opportunitythey had put in his way. Trust a boat on the high seas to bring out the Irrationalthat lurks at the bottom of every thought, sentiment, sensation, emotion. It waspart of the burlesque meanness pervading that particular disaster at sea that theydid not come to blows. It was all threats, all a terribly effective feint, a sham frombeginning to end, planned by the tremendous disdain of the Dark Powers whosereal terrors, always on the verge of triumph, are perpetually foiled by thesteadfastness of men. I asked, after waiting for a while, "Well, what happened?"A futile question. I knew too much already to hope for the grace of a singleuplifting touch, for the favour of hinted madness, of shadowed horror. "Nothing,"he said. "I meant business, but they meant noise only. Nothing happened."

'And the rising sun found him just as he had jumped up first in the bows of theboat. What a persistence of readiness! He had been holding the tiller in his hand,too, all the night. They had dropped the rudder overboard while attempting toship it, and I suppose the tiller got kicked forward somehow while they wererushing up and down that boat trying to do all sorts of things at once so as to getclear of the side. It was a long heavy piece of hard wood, and apparently he hadbeen clutching it for six hours or so. If you don't call that being ready! Can youimagine him, silent and on his feet half the night, his face to the gusts of rain,staring at sombre forms watchful of vague movements, straining his ears to catchrare low murmurs in the stern-sheets! Firmness of courage or effort of fear? Whatdo you think? And the endurance is undeniable too. Six hours more or less onthe defensive; six hours of alert immobility while the boat drove slowly or floatedarrested, according to the caprice of the wind; while the sea, calmed, slept atlast; while the clouds passed above his head; while the sky from an immensitylustreless and black, diminished to a sombre and lustrous vault, scintillated with agreater brilliance, faded to the east, paled at the zenith; while the dark shapesblotting the low stars astern got outlines, relief became shoulders, heads, faces,features,--confronted him with dreary stares, had dishevelled hair, torn clothes,blinked red eyelids at the white dawn. "They looked as though they had beenknocking about drunk in gutters for a week," he described graphically; and thenhe muttered something about the sunrise being of a kind that foretells a calmday. You know that sailor habit of referring to the weather in every connection.And on my side his few mumbled words were enough to make me see the lowerlimb of the sun clearing the line of the horizon, the tremble of a vast ripplerunning over all the visible expanse of the sea, as if the waters had shuddered,giving birth to the globe of light, while the last puff of the breeze would stir the airin a sigh of relief.' "They sat in the stern shoulder to shoulder, with the skipper in the middle, likethree dirty owls, and stared at me," I heard him say with an intention of hate thatdistilled a corrosive virtue into the commonplace words like a drop of powerfulpoison falling into a glass of water; but my thoughts dwelt upon that sunrise. Icould imagine under the pellucid emptiness of the sky these four men imprisonedin the solitude of the sea, the lonely sun, regardless of the speck of life,ascending the clear curve of the heaven as if to gaze ardently from a greaterheight at his own splendour reflected in the still ocean. "They called out to mefrom aft," said Jim, "as though we had been chums together. I heard them. Theywere begging me to be sensible and drop that 'blooming piece of wood.' Whywould I carry on so? They hadn't done me any harm--had they? There had beenno harm. . . . No harm!"

'His face crimsoned as though he could not get rid of the air in his lungs.

' "No harm!" he burst out. "I leave it to you. You can understand. Can't you? Yousee it--don't you? No harm! Good God! What more could they have done? Ohyes, I know very well--I jumped. Certainly. I jumped! I told you I jumped; but I tellyou they were too much for any man. It was their doing as plainly as if they hadreached up with a boat-hook and pulled me over. Can't you see it? You must seeit. Come. Speak--straight out."

'His uneasy eyes fastened upon mine, questioned, begged, challenged,

entreated. For the life of me I couldn't help murmuring, "You've been tried." "Morethan is fair," he caught up swiftly. "I wasn't given half a chance--with a gang likethat. And now they were friendly--oh, so damnably friendly! Chums, shipmates.All in the same boat. Make the best of it. They hadn't meant anything. They didn'tcare a hang for George. George had gone back to his berth for something at thelast moment and got caught. The man was a manifest fool. Very sad, of course. .. . Their eyes looked at me; their lips moved; they wagged their heads at theother end of the boat--three of them; they beckoned--to me. Why not? Hadn't Ijumped? I said nothing. There are no words for the sort of things I wanted to say.If I had opened my lips just then I would have simply howled like an animal. I wasasking myself when I would wake up. They urged me aloud to come aft and hearquietly what the skipper had to say. We were sure to be picked up before theevening--right in the track of all the Canal traffic; there was smoke to the north-west now.

' "It gave me an awful shock to see this faint, faint blur, this low trail of brown mistthrough which you could see the boundary of sea and sky. I called out to themthat I could hear very well where I was. The skipper started swearing, as hoarseas a crow. He wasn't going to talk at the top of his voice for my accommodation.'Are you afraid they will hear you on shore?' I asked. He glared as if he wouldhave liked to claw me to pieces. The chief engineer advised him to humour me.He said I wasn't right in my head yet. The other rose astern, like a thick pillar offlesh--and talked--talked. . . ."'Jim remained thoughtful. "Well?" I said. "What did I care what story they agreedto make up?" he cried recklessly. "They could tell what they jolly well liked. It wastheir business. I knew the story. Nothing they could make people believe couldalter it for me. I let him talk, argue--talk, argue. He went on and on and on.Suddenly I felt my legs give way under me. I was sick, tired--tired to death. I letfall the tiller, turned my back on them, and sat down on the foremost thwart. I hadenough. They called to me to know if I understood--wasn't it true, every word ofit? It was true, by God! after their fashion. I did not turn my head. I heard thempalavering together. 'The silly ass won't say anything.' 'Oh, he understands wellenough.' 'Let him be; he will be all right.' 'What can he do?' What could I do?Weren't we all in the same boat? I tried to be deaf. The smoke had disappearedto the northward. It was a dead calm. They had a drink from the water-breaker,and I drank too. Afterwards they made a great business of spreading the boat-sail over the gunwales. Would I keep a look-out? They crept under, out of mysight, thank God! I felt weary, weary, done up, as if I hadn't had one hour's sleepsince the day I was born. I couldn't see the water for the glitter of the sunshine.From time to time one of them would creep out, stand up to take a look all round,and get under again. I could hear spells of snoring below the sail. Some of themcould sleep. One of them at least. I couldn't! All was light, light, and the boatseemed to be falling through it. Now and then I would feel quite surprised to findmyself sitting on a thwart. . . ."

'He began to walk with measured steps to and fro before my chair, one hand inhis trousers-pocket, his head bent thoughtfully, and his right arm at long intervalsraised for a gesture that seemed to put out of his way an invisible intruder.

' "I suppose you think I was going mad," he began in a changed tone. "And wellyou may, if you remember I had lost my cap. The sun crept all the way from eastto west over my bare head, but that day I could not come to any harm, I suppose.The sun could not make me mad. . . ." His right arm put aside the idea ofmadness. . . . "Neither could it kill me. . . ." Again his arm repulsed a shadow. . . ."That rested with me."

' "Did it?" I said, inexpressibly amazed at this new turn, and I looked at him withthe same sort of feeling I might be fairly conceived to experience had he, afterspinning round on his heel, presented an altogether new face.

' "I didn't get brain fever, I did not drop dead either," he went on. "I didn't bothermyself at all about the sun over my head. I was thinking as coolly as any manthat ever sat thinking in the shade. That greasy beast of a skipper poked his bigcropped head from under the canvas and screwed his fishy eyes up at me.'Donnerwetter! you will die,' he growled, and drew in like a turtle. I had seen him.I had heard him. He didn't interrupt me. I was thinking just then that I wouldn't."

'He tried to sound my thought with an attentive glance dropped on me in passing.

"Do you mean to say you had been deliberating with yourself whether you woulddie?" I asked in as impenetrable a tone as I could command. He nodded withoutstopping. "Yes, it had come to that as I sat there alone," he said. He passed on afew steps to the imaginary end of his beat, and when he flung round to comeback both his hands were thrust deep into his pockets. He stopped short in frontof my chair and looked down. "Don't you believe it?" he inquired with tensecuriosity. I was moved to make a solemn declaration of my readiness to believeimplicitly anything he thought fit to tell me.' Chapter 11

'He heard me out with his head on one side, and I had another glimpse through arent in the mist in which he moved and had his being. The dim candle splutteredwithin the ball of glass, and that was all I had to see him by; at his back was thedark night with the clear stars, whose distant glitter disposed in retreating planeslured the eye into the depths of a greater darkness; and yet a mysterious lightseemed to show me his boyish head, as if in that moment the youth within himhad, for a moment, glowed and expired. "You are an awful good sort to listen likethis," he said. "It does me good. You don't know what it is to me. You don't" . . .words seemed to fail him. It was a distinct glimpse. He was a youngster of thesort you like to see about you; of the sort you like to imagine yourself to havebeen; of the sort whose appearance claims the fellowship of these illusions youhad thought gone out, extinct, cold, and which, as if rekindled at the approach ofanother flame, give a flutter deep, deep down somewhere, give a flutter of light . .. of heat! . . . Yes; I had a glimpse of him then . . . and it was not the last of thatkind. . . . "You don't know what it is for a fellow in my position to be believed--make a clean breast of it to an elder man. It is so difficult--so awfully unfair--sohard to understand."

'The mists were closing again. I don't know how old I appeared to him--and howmuch wise. Not half as old as I felt just then; not half as uselessly wise as I knewmyself to be. Surely in no other craft as in that of the sea do the hearts of thosealready launched to sink or swim go out so much to the youth on the brink,looking with shining eyes upon that glitter of the vast surface which is only areflection of his own glances full of fire. There is such magnificent vagueness inthe expectations that had driven each of us to sea, such a gloriousindefiniteness, such a beautiful greed of adventures that are their own and onlyreward. What we get--well, we won't talk of that; but can one of us restrain asmile? In no other kind of life is the illusion more wide of reality--in no other is thebeginning all illusion--the disenchantment more swift--the subjugation morecomplete. Hadn't we all commenced with the same desire, ended with the sameknowledge, carried the memory of the same cherished glamour through thesordid days of imprecation? What wonder that when some heavy prod gets homethe bond is found to be close; that besides the fellowship of the craft there is feltthe strength of a wider feeling--the feeling that binds a man to a child. He wasthere before me, believing that age and wisdom can find a remedy against thepain of truth, giving me a glimpse of himself as a young fellow in a scrape that isthe very devil of a scrape, the sort of scrape greybeards wag at solemnly whilethey hide a smile. And he had been deliberating upon death--confound him! Hehad found that to meditate about because he thought he had saved his life, whileall its glamour had gone with the ship in the night. What more natural! It wastragic enough and funny enough in all conscience to call aloud for compassion,and in what was I better than the rest of us to refuse him my pity? And even as Ilooked at him the mists rolled into the rent, and his voice spoke--

' "I was so lost, you know. It was the sort of thing one does not expect to happento one. It was not like a fight, for instance."

' "It was not," I admitted. He appeared changed, as if he had suddenly matured.

' "One couldn't be sure," he muttered.

' "Ah! You were not sure," I said, and was placated by the sound of a faint sighthat passed between us like the flight of a bird in the night.

' "Well, I wasn't," he said courageously. "It was something like that wretched storythey made up. It was not a lie--but it wasn't truth all the same. It was something. .. . One knows a downright lie. There was not the thickness of a sheet of paperbetween the right and the wrong of this affair."

' "How much more did you want?" I asked; but I think I spoke so low that he didnot catch what I said. He had advanced his argument as though life had been anetwork of paths separated by chasms. His voice sounded reasonable.

' "Suppose I had not--I mean to say, suppose I had stuck to the ship? Well. Howmuch longer? Say a minute--half a minute. Come. In thirty seconds, as it seemedcertain then, I would have been overboard; and do you think I would not have laidhold of the first thing that came in my way--oar, life-buoy, grating--anything?Wouldn't you?"

' "And be saved," I interjected.

' "I would have meant to be," he retorted. "And that's more than I meant when I" .. . he shivered as if about to swallow some nauseous drug . . . "jumped," hepronounced with a convulsive effort, whose stress, as if propagated by the wavesof the air, made my body stir a little in the chair. He fixed me with lowering eyes."Don't you believe me?" he cried. "I swear! . . . Confound it! You got me here totalk, and . . . You must! . . . You said you would believe." "Of course I do," Iprotested, in a matter-of-fact tone which produced a calming effect. "Forgive me,"he said. "Of course I wouldn't have talked to you about all this if you had notbeen a gentleman. I ought to have known . . . I am--I am--a gentleman too . . .""Yes, yes," I said hastily. He was looking me squarely in the face, and withdrewhis gaze slowly. "Now you understand why I didn't after all . . . didn't go out in thatway. I wasn't going to be frightened at what I had done. And, anyhow, if I hadstuck to the ship I would have done my best to be saved. Men have been knownto float for hours--in the open sea--and be picked up not much the worse for it. Imight have lasted it out better than many others. There's nothing the matter withmy heart." He withdrew his right fist from his pocket, and the blow he struck onhis chest resounded like a muffled detonation in the night.

' "No," I said. He meditated, with his legs slightly apart and his chin sunk. "Ahair's-breadth," he muttered. "Not the breadth of a hair between this and that.And at the time . . ."

' "It is difficult to see a hair at midnight," I put in, a little viciously I fear. Don't yousee what I mean by the solidarity of the craft? I was aggrieved against him, asthough he had cheated me-- me!--of a splendid opportunity to keep up theillusion of my beginnings, as though he had robbed our common life of the lastspark of its glamour. "And so you cleared out--at once."

' "Jumped," he corrected me incisively. "Jumped--mind!" he repeated, and I

wondered at the evident but obscure intention. "Well, yes! Perhaps I could notsee then. But I had plenty of time and any amount of light in that boat. And Icould think, too. Nobody would know, of course, but this did not make it anyeasier for me. You've got to believe that, too. I did not want all this talk. . . . No . .. Yes . . . I won't lie . . . I wanted it: it is the very thing I wanted--there. Do youthink you or anybody could have made me if I . . . I am--I am not afraid to tell.And I wasn't afraid to think either. I looked it in the face. I wasn't going to runaway. At first-- at night, if it hadn't been for those fellows I might have . . . No! byheavens! I was not going to give them that satisfaction. They had done enough.They made up a story, and believed it for all I know. But I knew the truth, and Iwould live it down--alone, with myself. I wasn't going to give in to such a beastlyunfair thing. What did it prove after all? I was confoundedly cut up. Sick of life--totell you the truth; but what would have been the good to shirk it-- in--in--that way?That was not the way. I believe--I believe it would have--it would have ended--nothing."

'He had been walking up and down, but with the last word he turned short at me.

' "What do you believe?" he asked with violence. A pause ensued, and suddenly Ifelt myself overcome by a profound and hopeless fatigue, as though his voicehad startled me out of a dream of wandering through empty spaces whoseimmensity had harassed my soul and exhausted my body.

' ". . . Would have ended nothing," he muttered over me obstinately, after a littlewhile. "No! the proper thing was to face it out-- alone for myself--wait for anotherchance--find out . . ." ' Chapter 12

'All around everything was still as far as the ear could reach. The mist of hisfeelings shifted between us, as if disturbed by his struggles, and in the rifts of theimmaterial veil he would appear to my staring eyes distinct of form and pregnantwith vague appeal like a symbolic figure in a picture. The chill air of the nightseemed to lie on my limbs as heavy as a slab of marble.

' "I see," I murmured, more to prove to myself that I could break my state ofnumbness than for any other reason.

' "The Avondale picked us up just before sunset," he remarked moodily.

"Steamed right straight for us. We had only to sit and wait."

'After a long interval, he said, "They told their story." And again there was thatoppressive silence. "Then only I knew what it was I had made up my mind to," headded.

' "You said nothing," I whispered.

' "What could I say?" he asked, in the same low tone. . . . "Shock slight. Stoppedthe ship. Ascertained the damage. Took measures to get the boats out withoutcreating a panic. As the first boat was lowered ship went down in a squall. Sanklike lead. . . . What could be more clear" . . . he hung his head . . . "and moreawful?" His lips quivered while he looked straight into my eyes. "I had jumped--hadn't I?" he asked, dismayed. "That's what I had to live down. The story didn'tmatter." . . . He clasped his hands for an instant, glanced right and left into thegloom: "It was like cheating the dead," he stammered.

' "And there were no dead," I said.

'He went away from me at this. That is the only way I can describe it. In amoment I saw his back close to the balustrade. He stood there for some time, asif admiring the purity and the peace of the night. Some flowering-shrub in thegarden below spread its powerful scent through the damp air. He returned to mewith hasty steps.

' "And that did not matter," he said, as stubbornly as you please.

' "Perhaps not," I admitted. I began to have a notion he was too much for me.After all, what did I know?

' "Dead or not dead, I could not get clear," he said. "I had to live; hadn't I?"' "Well, yes--if you take it in that way," I mumbled.

' "I was glad, of course," he threw out carelessly, with his mind fixed onsomething else. "The exposure," he pronounced slowly, and lifted his head. "Doyou know what was my first thought when I heard? I was relieved. I was relievedto learn that those shouts-- did I tell you I had heard shouts? No? Well, I did.Shouts for help . . . blown along with the drizzle. Imagination, I suppose. And yetI can hardly . . . How stupid. . . . The others did not. I asked them afterwards.They all said No. No? And I was hearing them even then! I might have known--but I didn't think--I only listened. Very faint screams--day after day. Then that littlehalf-caste chap here came up and spoke to me. 'The Patna . . . French gunboat. .. towed successfully to Aden. . . Investigation. . . Marine Office . . . Sailors' Home. . . arrangements made for your board and lodging!' I walked along with him, andI enjoyed the silence. So there had been no shouting. Imagination. I had tobelieve him. I could hear nothing any more. I wonder how long I could have stoodit. It was getting worse, too . . . I mean--louder." 'He fell into thought.

' "And I had heard nothing! Well--so be it. But the lights! The lights did go! We didnot see them. They were not there. If they had been, I would have swam back--Iwould have gone back and shouted alongside--I would have begged them to takeme on board. . . . I would have had my chance. . . . You doubt me? . . . How doyou know how I felt? . . . What right have you to doubt? . . . I very nearly did it asit was--do you understand?" His voice fell. "There was not a glimmer--not aglimmer," he protested mournfully. "Don't you understand that if there had been,you would not have seen me here? You see me--and you doubt."

'I shook my head negatively. This question of the lights being lost sight of whenthe boat could not have been more than a quarter of a mile from the ship was amatter for much discussion. Jim stuck to it that there was nothing to be seen afterthe first shower had cleared away; and the others had affirmed the same thing tothe officers of the Avondale. Of course people shook their heads and smiled.One old skipper who sat near me in court tickled my ear with his white beard tomurmur, "Of course they would lie." As a matter of fact nobody lied; not even thechief engineer with his story of the mast-head light dropping like a match youthrow down. Not consciously, at least. A man with his liver in such a state mightvery well have seen a floating spark in the corner of his eye when stealing ahurried glance over his shoulder. They had seen no light of any sort though theywere well within range, and they could only explain this in one way: the ship hadgone down. It was obvious and comforting. The foreseen fact coming so swiftlyhad justified their haste. No wonder they did not cast about for any otherexplanation. Yet the true one was very simple, and as soon as Brierly suggestedit the court ceased to bother about the question.

'If you remember, the ship had been stopped, and was lying with her head on thecourse steered through the night, with her stern canted high and her bowsbrought low down in the water through the filling of the fore-compartment. Beingthus out of trim, when the squall struck her a little on the quarter, she swunghead to wind as sharply as though she had been at anchor. By this change in herposition all her lights were in a very few moments shut off from the boat toleeward. It may very well be that, had they been seen, they would have had theeffect of a mute appeal--that their glimmer lost in the darkness of the cloud wouldhave had the mysterious power of the human glance that can awaken thefeelings of remorse and pity. It would have said, "I am here--still here" . . . andwhat more can the eye of the most forsaken of human beings say? But sheturned her back on them as if in disdain of their fate: she had swung round,burdened, to glare stubbornly at the new danger of the open sea which she sostrangely survived to end her days in a breaking-up yard, as if it had been herrecorded fate to die obscurely under the blows of many hammers. What were thevarious ends their destiny provided for the pilgrims I am unable to say; but theimmediate future brought, at about nine o'clock next morning, a French gunboathomeward bound from Reunion. The report of her commander was publicproperty. He had swept a little out of his course to ascertain what was the matterwith that steamer floating dangerously by the head upon a still and hazy sea.There was an ensign, union down, flying at her main gaff (the serang had thesense to make a signal of distress at daylight); but the cooks were preparing thefood in the cooking-boxes forward as usual. The decks were packed as close asa sheep-pen: there were people perched all along the rails, jammed on thebridge in a solid mass; hundreds of eyes stared, and not a sound was heardwhen the gunboat ranged abreast, as if all that multitude of lips had been sealedby a spell.

'The Frenchman hailed, could get no intelligible reply, and after ascertainingthrough his binoculars that the crowd on deck did not look plague-stricken,decided to send a boat. Two officers came on board, listened to the serang, triedto talk with the Arab, couldn't make head or tail of it: but of course the nature ofthe emergency was obvious enough. They were also very much struck bydiscovering a white man, dead and curled up peacefully on the bridge. "Fortintrigues par ce cadavre," as I was informed a long time after by an elderlyFrench lieutenant whom I came across one afternoon in Sydney, by the merestchance, in a sort of cafe, and who remembered the affair perfectly. Indeed thisaffair, I may notice in passing, had an extraordinary power of defying theshortness of memories and the length of time: it seemed to live, with a sort ofuncanny vitality, in the minds of men, on the tips of their tongues. I've had thequestionable pleasure of meeting it often, years afterwards, thousands of milesaway, emerging from the remotest possible talk, coming to the surface of themost distant allusions. Has it not turned up to-night between us? And I am theonly seaman here. I am the only one to whom it is a memory. And yet it hasmade its way out! But if two men who, unknown to each other, knew of this affairmet accidentally on any spot of this earth, the thing would pop up between themas sure as fate, before they parted. I had never seen that Frenchman before, andat the end of an hour we had done with each other for life: he did not seemparticularly talkative either; he was a quiet, massive chap in a creased uniform,sitting drowsily over a tumbler half full of some dark liquid. His shoulder-strapswere a bit tarnished, his clean-shaved cheeks were large and sallow; he lookedlike a man who would be given to taking snuff--don't you know? I won't say hedid; but the habit would have fitted that kind of man. It all began by his handingme a number of Home News, which I didn't want, across the marble table. I said"Merci." We exchanged a few apparently innocent remarks, and suddenly, beforeI knew how it had come about, we were in the midst of it, and he was telling mehow much they had been "intrigued by that corpse." It turned out he had beenone of the boarding officers.

'In the establishment where we sat one could get a variety of foreign drinks whichwere kept for the visiting naval officers, and he took a sip of the dark medical-looking stuff, which probably was nothing more nasty than cassis a l'eau, andglancing with one eye into the tumbler, shook his head slightly. "Impossible decomprendre-- vous concevez," he said, with a curious mixture of unconcern andthoughtfulness. I could very easily conceive how impossible it had been for themto understand. Nobody in the gunboat knew enough English to get hold of thestory as told by the serang. There was a good deal of noise, too, round the twoofficers. "They crowded upon us. There was a circle round that dead man (autourde ce mort)," he described. "One had to attend to the most pressing. Thesepeople were beginning to agitate themselves--Parbleu! A mob like that--don't yousee?" he interjected with philosophic indulgence. As to the bulkhead, he hadadvised his commander that the safest thing was to leave it alone, it was sovillainous to look at. They got two hawsers on board promptly (en toute hale) andtook the Patna in tow--stern foremost at that--which, under the circumstances,was not so foolish, since the rudder was too much out of the water to be of anygreat use for steering, and this manoeuvre eased the strain on the bulkhead,whose state, he expounded with stolid glibness, demanded the greatest care(exigeait les plus grands menagements).

'I could not help thinking that my new acquaintance must have had a voice inmost of these arrangements: he looked a reliable officer, no longer very active,and he was seamanlike too, in a way, though as he sat there, with his thickfingers clasped lightly on his stomach, he reminded you of one of those snuffy,quiet village priests, into whose ears are poured the sins, the sufferings, theremorse of peasant generations, on whose faces the placid and simpleexpression is like a veil thrown over the mystery of pain and distress. He ought tohave had a threadbare black soutane buttoned smoothly up to his ample chin,instead of a frock-coat with shoulder-straps and brass buttons. His broad bosomheaved regularly while he went on telling me that it had been the very devil of ajob, as doubtless (sans doute) I could figure to myself in my quality of a seaman(en votre qualite de marin). At the end of the period he inclined his body slightlytowards me, and, pursing his shaved lips, allowed the air to escape with a gentlehiss. "Luckily," he continued, "the sea was level like this table, and there was nomore wind than there is here." . . . The place struck me as indeed intolerablystuffy, and very hot; my face burned as though I had been young enough to beembarrassed and blushing. They had directed their course, he pursued, to thenearest English port "naturellement," where their responsibility ceased, "Dieumerci." . . . He blew out his flat cheeks a little. . . . "Because, mind you (notezbien), all the time of towing we had two quartermasters stationed with axes bythe hawsers, to cut us clear of our tow in case she . . ." He fluttered downwardshis heavy eyelids, making his meaning as plain as possible. . . . "What wouldyou! One does what one can (on fait ce qu'on peut)," and for a moment hemanaged to invest his ponderous immobility with an air of resignation. "Twoquartermasters--thirty hours--always there. Two!" he repeated, lifting up his righthand a little, and exhibiting two fingers. This was absolutely the first gesture Isaw him make. It gave me the opportunity to "note" a starred scar on the back ofhis hand--effect of a gunshot clearly; and, as if my sight had been made moreacute by this discovery, I perceived also the seam of an old wound, beginning alittle below the temple and going out of sight under the short grey hair at the sideof his head--the graze of a spear or the cut of a sabre. He clasped his hands onhis stomach again. "I remained on board that--that--my memory is going (s'enva). Ah! Patt-na. C'est bien ca. Patt-na. Merci. It is droll how one forgets. I stayedon that ship thirty hours. . . ."

' "You did!" I exclaimed. Still gazing at his hands, he pursed his lips a little, butthis time made no hissing sound. "It was judged proper," he said, lifting hiseyebrows dispassionately, "that one of the officers should remain to keep an eyeopen (pour ouvrir l'oeil)" . . . he sighed idly . . . "and for communicating by signalswith the towing ship--do you see?--and so on. For the rest, it was my opinion too.We made our boats ready to drop over--and I also on that ship took measures. . .. Enfin! One has done one's possible. It was a delicate position. Thirty hours!They prepared me some food. As for the wine--go and whistle for it--not a drop."In some extraordinary way, without any marked change in his inert attitude and inthe placid expression of his face, he managed to convey the idea of profounddisgust. "I--you know--when it comes to eating without my glass of wine--I amnowhere."

'I was afraid he would enlarge upon the grievance, for though he didn't stir a limbor twitch a feature, he made one aware how much he was irritated by therecollection. But he seemed to forget all about it. They delivered their charge tothe "port authorities," as he expressed it. He was struck by the calmness withwhich it had been received. "One might have thought they had such a droll find(drole de trouvaille) brought them every day. You are extraordinary-- you others,"he commented, with his back propped against the wall, and looking himself asincapable of an emotional display as a sack of meal. There happened to be aman-of-war and an Indian Marine steamer in the harbour at the time, and he didnot conceal his admiration of the efficient manner in which the boats of these twoships cleared the Patna of her passengers. Indeed his torpid demeanourconcealed nothing: it had that mysterious, almost miraculous, power of producingstriking effects by means impossible of detection which is the last word of thehighest art. "Twenty-five minutes--watch in hand--twenty-five, no more." . . . Heunclasped and clasped again his fingers without removing his hands from hisstomach, and made it infinitely more effective than if he had thrown up his armsto heaven in amazement. . . . "All that lot (tout ce monde) on shore--with theirlittle affairs--nobody left but a guard of seamen (marins de l'Etat) and thatinteresting corpse (cet interessant cadavre). Twenty-five minutes." . . . Withdowncast eyes and his head tilted slightly on one side he seemed to rollknowingly on his tongue the savour of a smart bit of work. He persuaded onewithout any further demonstration that his approval was eminently worth having,and resuming his hardly interrupted immobility, he went on to inform me that,being under orders to make the best of their way to Toulon, they left in two hours'time, "so that (de sorte que) there are many things in this incident of my life (danscet episode de ma vie) which have remained obscure." ' Chapter 13

'After these words, and without a change of attitude, he, so to speak, submittedhimself passively to a state of silence. I kept him company; and suddenly, but notabruptly, as if the appointed time had arrived for his moderate and husky voice tocome out of his immobility, he pronounced, "Mon Dieu! how the time passes!"Nothing could have been more commonplace than this remark; but its utterancecoincided for me with a moment of vision. It's extraordinary how we go throughlife with eyes half shut, with dull ears, with dormant thoughts. Perhaps it's just aswell; and it may be that it is this very dullness that makes life to the incalculablemajority so supportable and so welcome. Nevertheless, there can be but few ofus who had never known one of these rare moments of awakening when we see,hear, understand ever so much--everything--in a flash--before we fall back againinto our agreeable somnolence. I raised my eyes when he spoke, and I saw himas though I had never seen him before. I saw his chin sunk on his breast, theclumsy folds of his coat, his clasped hands, his motionless pose, so curiouslysuggestive of his having been simply left there. Time had passed indeed: it hadovertaken him and gone ahead. It had left him hopelessly behind with a few poorgifts: the iron-grey hair, the heavy fatigue of the tanned face, two scars, a pair oftarnished shoulder-straps; one of those steady, reliable men who are the rawmaterial of great reputations, one of those uncounted lives that are buried withoutdrums and trumpets under the foundations of monumental successes.

' "I am now third lieutenant of the Victorieuse" (she was the flagship of the FrenchPacific squadron at the time), he said, detaching his shoulders from the wall acouple of inches to introduce himself. I bowed slightly on my side of the table,and told him I commanded a merchant vessel at present anchored inRushcutters' Bay. He had "remarked" her,--a pretty little craft. He was very civilabout it in his impassive way. I even fancy he went the length of tilting his head incompliment as he repeated, breathing visibly the while, "Ah, yes. A little craftpainted black--very pretty--very pretty (tres coquet)." After a time he twisted hisbody slowly to face the glass door on our right. "A dull town (triste ville)," heobserved, staring into the street. It was a brilliant day; a southerly buster wasraging, and we could see the passers-by, men and women, buffeted by the windon the sidewalks, the sunlit fronts of the houses across the road blurred by thetall whirls of dust. "I descended on shore," he said, "to stretch my legs a little, but. . ." He didn't finish, and sank into the depths of his repose. "Pray--tell me," hebegan, coming up ponderously, "what was there at the bottom of this affair--precisely (au juste)? It is curious. That dead man, for instance--and so on."

' "There were living men too," I said; "much more curious."

' "No doubt, no doubt," he agreed half audibly, then, as if after matureconsideration, murmured, "Evidently." I made no difficulty in communicating tohim what had interested me most in this affair. It seemed as though he had aright to know: hadn't he spent thirty hours on board the Palna--had he not takenthe succession, so to speak, had he not done "his possible"? He listened to me,looking more priest-like than ever, and with what--probably on account of hisdowncast eyes--had the appearance of devout concentration. Once or twice heelevated his eyebrows (but without raising his eyelids), as one would say "Thedevil!" Once he calmly exclaimed, "Ah, bah!" under his breath, and when I hadfinished he pursed his lips in a deliberate way and emitted a sort of sorrowfulwhistle.

'In any one else it might have been an evidence of boredom, a sign ofindifference; but he, in his occult way, managed to make his immobility appearprofoundly responsive, and as full of valuable thoughts as an egg is of meat.What he said at last was nothing more than a "Very interesting," pronouncedpolitely, and not much above a whisper. Before I got over my disappointment headded, but as if speaking to himself, "That's it. That is it." His chin seemed to sinklower on his breast, his body to weigh heavier on his seat. I was about to ask himwhat he meant, when a sort of preparatory tremor passed over his whole person,as a faint ripple may be seen upon stagnant water even before the wind is felt."And so that poor young man ran away along with the others," he said, withgrave tranquillity.

'I don't know what made me smile: it is the only genuine smile of mine I canremember in connection with Jim's affair. But somehow this simple statement ofthe matter sounded funny in French. . . . "S'est enfui avec les autres," had saidthe lieutenant. And suddenly I began to admire the discrimination of the man. Hehad made out the point at once: he did get hold of the only thing I cared about. Ifelt as though I were taking professional opinion on the case. His imperturbableand mature calmness was that of an expert in possession of the facts, and towhom one's perplexities are mere child's-play. "Ah! The young, the young," hesaid indulgently. "And after all, one does not die of it." "Die of what?" I askedswiftly. "Of being afraid." He elucidated his meaning and sipped his drink.

'I perceived that the three last fingers of his wounded hand were stiff and couldnot move independently of each other, so that he took up his tumbler with anungainly clutch. "One is always afraid. One may talk, but . . ." He put down theglass awkwardly. . . . "The fear, the fear--look you--it is always there." . . . Hetouched his breast near a brass button, on the very spot where Jim had given athump to his own when protesting that there was nothing the matter with hisheart. I suppose I made some sign of dissent, because he insisted, "Yes! yes!One talks, one talks; this is all very fine; but at the end of the reckoning one is nocleverer than the next man--and no more brave. Brave! This is always to beseen. I have rolled my hump (roule ma bosse)," he said, using the slangexpression with imperturbable seriousness, "in all parts of the world; I haveknown brave men--famous ones! Allez!" . . . He drank carelessly. . . . "Brave--youconceive--in the Service--one has got to be--the trade demands it (le metier veutca). Is it not so?" he appealed to me reasonably. "Eh bien! Each of them--I sayeach of them, if he were an honest man--bien entendu--would confess that thereis a point--there is a point--for the best of us--there is somewhere a point whenyou let go everything (vous lachez tout). And you have got to live with that truth--do you see? Given a certain combination of circumstances, fear is sure to come.Abominable funk (un trac epouvantable). And even for those who do not believethis truth there is fear all the same--the fear of themselves. Absolutely so. Trustme. Yes. Yes. . . . At my age one knows what one is talking about--que diable!" .. . He had delivered himself of all this as immovably as though he had been themouthpiece of abstract wisdom, but at this point he heightened the effect ofdetachment by beginning to twirl his thumbs slowly. "It's evident-- parbleu!" hecontinued; "for, make up your mind as much as you like, even a simple headacheor a fit of indigestion (un derangement d'estomac) is enough to . . . Take me, forinstance--I have made my proofs. Eh bien! I, who am speaking to you, once . . ."

'He drained his glass and returned to his twirling. "No, no; one does not die of it,"he pronounced finally, and when I found he did not mean to proceed with thepersonal anecdote, I was extremely disappointed; the more so as it was not thesort of story, you know, one could very well press him for. I sat silent, and he too,as if nothing could please him better. Even his thumbs were still now. Suddenlyhis lips began to move. "That is so," he resumed placidly. "Man is born a coward(L'homme est ne poltron). It is a difficulty-- parbleu! It would be too easy othervise. But habit--habit--necessity-- do you see?--the eye of others--voila. One putsup with it. And then the example of others who are no better than yourself, andyet make good countenance. . . ."

'His voice ceased.

' "That young man--you will observe--had none of these inducements--at least atthe moment," I remarked.

'He raised his eyebrows forgivingly: "I don't say; I don't say. The young man inquestion might have had the best dispositions-- the best dispositions," herepeated, wheezing a little.

' "I am glad to see you taking a lenient view," I said. "His own feeling in the matterwas--ah!--hopeful, and . . ."

'The shuffle of his feet under the table interrupted me. He drew up his heavyeyelids. Drew up, I say--no other expression can describe the steady deliberationof the act--and at last was disclosed completely to me. I was confronted by twonarrow grey circlets, like two tiny steel rings around the profound blackness ofthe pupils. The sharp glance, coming from that massive body, gave a notion ofextreme efficiency, like a razor-edge on a battle-axe. "Pardon," he saidpunctiliously. His right hand went up, and he swayed forward. "Allow me . . . Icontended that one may get on knowing very well that one's courage does notcome of itself (ne vient pas tout seul). There's nothing much in that to get upsetabout. One truth the more ought not to make life impossible. . . . But the honour--the honour, monsieur! . . . The honour . . . that is real--that is! And what life maybe worth when" . . . he got on his feet with a ponderous impetuosity, as a startledox might scramble up from the grass . . . "when the honour is gone--ah ca! parexemple--I can offer no opinion. I can offer no opinion--because-- monsieur--Iknow nothing of it."

'I had risen too, and, trying to throw infinite politeness into our attitudes, we facedeach other mutely, like two china dogs on a mantelpiece. Hang the fellow! he hadpricked the bubble. The blight of futility that lies in wait for men's speeches hadfallen upon our conversation, and made it a thing of empty sounds. "Very well," Isaid, with a disconcerted smile; "but couldn't it reduce itself to not being foundout?" He made as if to retort readily, but when he spoke he had changed hismind. "This, monsieur, is too fine for me--much above me--I don't think about it."He bowed heavily over his cap, which he held before him by the peak, betweenthe thumb and the forefinger of his wounded hand. I bowed too. We bowedtogether: we scraped our feet at each other with much ceremony, while a dirtyspecimen of a waiter looked on critically, as though he had paid for theperformance. "Serviteur," said the Frenchman. Another scrape. "Monsieur" . . ."Monsieur." . . . The glass door swung behind his burly back. I saw the southerlybuster get hold of him and drive him down wind with his hand to his head, hisshoulders braced, and the tails of his coat blown hard against his legs.

'I sat down again alone and discouraged--discouraged about Jim's case. If youwonder that after more than three years it had preserved its actuality, you mustknow that I had seen him only very lately. I had come straight from Samarang,where I had loaded a cargo for Sydney: an utterly uninteresting bit of business,--what Charley here would call one of my rational transactions,--and in Samarang Ihad seen something of Jim. He was then working for De Jongh, on myrecommendation. Water-clerk. "My representative afloat," as De Jongh calledhim. You can't imagine a mode of life more barren of consolation, less capable ofbeing invested with a spark of glamour--unless it be the business of an insurancecanvasser. Little Bob Stanton--Charley here knew him well--had gone throughthat experience. The same who got drowned afterwards trying to save a lady's-maid in the Sephora disaster. A case of collision on a hazy morning off theSpanish coast--you may remember. All the passengers had been packed tidilyinto the boats and shoved clear of the ship, when Bob sheered alongside againand scrambled back on deck to fetch that girl. How she had been left behind Ican't make out; anyhow, she had gone completely crazy--wouldn't leave the ship--held to the rail like grim death. The wrestling-match could be seen plainly fromthe boats; but poor Bob was the shortest chief mate in the merchant service, andthe woman stood five feet ten in her shoes and was as strong as a horse, I'vebeen told. So it went on, pull devil, pull baker, the wretched girl screaming all thetime, and Bob letting out a yell now and then to warn his boat to keep well clearof the ship. One of the hands told me, hiding a smile at the recollection, "It wasfor all the world, sir, like a naughty youngster fighting with his mother." The sameold chap said that "At the last we could see that Mr. Stanton had given up haulingat the gal, and just stood by looking at her, watchful like. We thought afterwardshe must've been reckoning that, maybe, the rush of water would tear her awayfrom the rail by-and-by and give him a show to save her. We daren't comealongside for our life; and after a bit the old ship went down all on a sudden witha lurch to starboard--plop. The suck in was something awful. We never sawanything alive or dead come up." Poor Bob's spell of shore-life had been one ofthe complications of a love affair, I believe. He fondly hoped he had done with thesea for ever, and made sure he had got hold of all the bliss on earth, but it cameto canvassing in the end. Some cousin of his in Liverpool put up to it. He used totell us his experiences in that line. He made us laugh till we cried, and, notaltogether displeased at the effect, undersized and bearded to the waist like agnome, he would tiptoe amongst us and say, "It's all very well for you beggars tolaugh, but my immortal soul was shrivelled down to the size of a parched peaafter a week of that work." I don't know how Jim's soul accommodated itself tothe new conditions of his life--I was kept too busy in getting him something to dothat would keep body and soul together--but I am pretty certain his adventurousfancy was suffering all the pangs of starvation. It had certainly nothing to feedupon in this new calling. It was distressing to see him at it, though he tackled itwith a stubborn serenity for which I must give him full credit. I kept my eye on hisshabby plodding with a sort of notion that it was a punishment for the heroics ofhis fancy--an expiation for his craving after more glamour than he could carry. Hehad loved too well to imagine himself a glorious racehorse, and now he wascondemned to toil without honour like a costermonger's donkey. He did it verywell. He shut himself in, put his head down, said never a word. Very well; verywell indeed--except for certain fantastic and violent outbreaks, on the deplorableoccasions when the irrepressible Patna case cropped up. Unfortunately thatscandal of the Eastern seas would not die out. And this is the reason why I couldnever feel I had done with Jim for good.

'I sat thinking of him after the French lieutenant had left, not, however, inconnection with De Jongh's cool and gloomy backshop, where we had hurriedlyshaken hands not very long ago, but as I had seen him years before in the lastflickers of the candle, alone with me in the long gallery of the Malabar House,with the chill and the darkness of the night at his back. The respectable sword ofhis country's law was suspended over his head. To-morrow--or was it to-day?(midnight had slipped by long before we parted)--the marble-faced policemagistrate, after distributing fines and terms of imprisonment in the assault-and-battery case, would take up the awful weapon and smite his bowed neck. Ourcommunion in the night was uncommonly like a last vigil with a condemned man.He was guilty too. He was guilty--as I had told myself repeatedly, guilty and donefor; nevertheless, I wished to spare him the mere detail of a formal execution. Idon't pretend to explain the reasons of my desire--I don't think I could; but if youhaven't got a sort of notion by this time, then I must have been very obscure inmy narrative, or you too sleepy to seize upon the sense of my words. I don'tdefend my morality. There was no morality in the impulse which induced me tolay before him Brierly's plan of evasion--I may call it--in all its primitive simplicity.There were the rupees-- absolutely ready in my pocket and very much at hisservice. Oh! a loan; a loan of course--and if an introduction to a man (inRangoon) who could put some work in his way . . . Why! with the greatestpleasure. I had pen, ink, and paper in my room on the first floor And even while Iwas speaking I was impatient to begin the letter-- day, month, year, 2.30 A.M. . . .for the sake of our old friendship I ask you to put some work in the way of Mr.James So-and-so, in whom, &c., &c. . . . I was even ready to write in that strainabout him. If he had not enlisted my sympathies he had done better for himself--he had gone to the very fount and origin of that sentiment he had reached thesecret sensibility of my egoism. I am concealing nothing from you, because wereI to do so my action would appear more unintelligible than any man's action hasthe right to be, and-- in the second place--to-morrow you will forget my sincerityalong with the other lessons of the past. In this transaction, to speak grossly andprecisely, I was the irreproachable man; but the subtle intentions of myimmorality were defeated by the moral simplicity of the criminal. No doubt he wasselfish too, but his selfishness had a higher origin, a more lofty aim. I discoveredthat, say what I would, he was eager to go through the ceremony of execution,and I didn't say much, for I felt that in argument his youth would tell against meheavily: he believed where I had already ceased to doubt.

'There was something fine in the wildness of his unexpressed, hardly formulatedhope. "Clear out! Couldn't think of it," he said, with a shake of the head. "I makeyou an offer for which I neither demand nor expect any sort of gratitude," I said;"you shall repay the money when convenient, and . . ." "Awfully good of you," hemuttered without looking up. I watched him narrowly: the future must haveappeared horribly uncertain to him; but he did not falter, as though indeed therehad been nothing wrong with his heart. I felt angry-- not for the first time thatnight. "The whole wretched business," I said, "is bitter enough, I should think, fora man of your kind . . ." "It is, it is," he whispered twice, with his eyes fixed on thefloor. It was heartrending. He towered above the light, and I could see the downon his cheek, the colour mantling warm under the smooth skin of his face.Believe me or not, I say it was outrageously heartrending. It provoked me tobrutality. "Yes," I said; "and allow me to confess that I am totally unable toimagine what advantage you can expect from this licking of the dregs.""Advantage!" he murmured out of his stillness. "I am dashed if I do," I said,enraged. "I've been trying to tell you all there is in it," he went on slowly, as ifmeditating something unanswerable. "But after all, it is my trouble." I opened mymouth to retort, and discovered suddenly that I'd lost all confidence in myself;and it was as if he too had given me up, for he mumbled like a man thinking halfaloud. "Went away . . . went into hospitals. . . . Not one of them would face it. . . .They! . . ." He moved his hand slightly to imply disdain. "But I've got to get overthis thing, and I mustn't shirk any of it or . . . I won't shirk any of it." He was silent.He gazed as though he had been haunted. His unconscious face reflected thepassing expressions of scorn, of despair, of resolution--reflected them in turn, asa magic mirror would reflect the gliding passage of unearthly shapes. He livedsurrounded by deceitful ghosts, by austere shades. "Oh! nonsense, my dearfellow," I began. He had a movement of impatience. "You don't seem tounderstand," he said incisively; then looking at me without a wink, "I may havejumped, but I don't run away." "I meant no offence," I said; and added stupidly,"Better men than you have found it expedient to run, at times." He coloured allover, while in my confusion I half-choked myself with my own tongue. "Perhapsso," he said at last, "I am not good enough; I can't afford it. I am bound to fightthis thing down--I am fighting it now." I got out of my chair and felt stiff all over.The silence was embarrassing, and to put an end to it I imagined nothing betterbut to remark, "I had no idea it was so late," in an airy tone. . . . "I dare say youhave had enough of this," he said brusquely: "and to tell you the truth"--he beganto look round for his hat--"so have I."

'Well! he had refused this unique offer. He had struck aside my helping hand; hewas ready to go now, and beyond the balustrade the night seemed to wait forhim very still, as though he had been marked down for its prey. I heard his voice."Ah! here it is." He had found his hat. For a few seconds we hung in the wind."What will you do after--after . . ." I asked very low. "Go to the dogs as likely asnot," he answered in a gruff mutter. I had recovered my wits in a measure, andjudged best to take it lightly. "Pray remember," I said, "that I should like verymuch to see you again before you go." "I don't know what's to prevent you. Thedamned thing won't make me invisible," he said with intense bitterness,--"no suchluck." And then at the moment of taking leave he treated me to a ghastly muddleof dubious stammers and movements, to an awful display of hesitations. Godforgive him--me! He had taken it into his fanciful head that I was likely to makesome difficulty as to shaking hands. It was too awful for words. I believe Ishouted suddenly at him as you would bellow to a man you saw about to walkover a cliff; I remember our voices being raised, the appearance of a miserablegrin on his face, a crushing clutch on my hand, a nervous laugh. The candlespluttered out, and the thing was over at last, with a groan that floated up to mein the dark. He got himself away somehow. The night swallowed his form. Hewas a horrible bungler. Horrible. I heard the quick crunch-crunch of the gravelunder his boots. He was running. Absolutely running, with nowhere to go to. Andhe was not yet four-and-twenty.' Chapter 14

'I slept little, hurried over my breakfast, and after a slight hesitation gave up myearly morning visit to my ship. It was really very wrong of me, because, thoughmy chief mate was an excellent man all round, he was the victim of such blackimaginings that if he did not get a letter from his wife at the expected time hewould go quite distracted with rage and jealousy, lose all grip on the work,quarrel with all hands, and either weep in his cabin or develop such a ferocity oftemper as all but drove the crew to the verge of mutiny. The thing had alwaysseemed inexplicable to me: they had been married thirteen years; I had aglimpse of her once, and, honestly, I couldn't conceive a man abandoned enoughto plunge into sin for the sake of such an unattractive person. I don't knowwhether I have not done wrong by refraining from putting that view before poorSelvin: the man made a little hell on earth for himself, and I also sufferedindirectly, but some sort of, no doubt, false delicacy prevented me. The maritalrelations of seamen would make an interesting subject, and I could tell youinstances. . . . However, this is not the place, nor the time, and we are concernedwith Jim-- who was unmarried. If his imaginative conscience or his pride; if all theextravagant ghosts and austere shades that were the disastrous familiars of hisyouth would not let him run away from the block, I, who of course can't besuspected of such familiars, was irresistibly impelled to go and see his head rolloff. I wended my way towards the court. I didn't hope to be very much impressedor edified, or interested or even frightened--though, as long as there is any lifebefore one, a jolly good fright now and then is a salutary discipline. But neitherdid I expect to be so awfully depressed. The bitterness of his punishment was inits chill and mean atmosphere. The real significance of crime is in its being abreach of faith with the community of mankind, and from that point of view hewas no mean traitor, but his execution was a hole-and-corner affair. There wasno high scaffolding, no scarlet cloth (did they have scarlet cloth on Tower Hill?They should have had), no awe-stricken multitude to be horrified at his guilt andbe moved to tears at his fate--no air of sombre retribution. There was, as Iwalked along, the clear sunshine, a brilliance too passionate to be consoling, thestreets full of jumbled bits of colour like a damaged kaleidoscope: yellow, green,blue, dazzling white, the brown nudity of an undraped shoulder, a bullock-cartwith a red canopy, a company of native infantry in a drab body with dark headsmarching in dusty laced boots, a native policeman in a sombre uniform of scantycut and belted in patent leather, who looked up at me with orientally pitiful eyesas though his migrating spirit were suffering exceedingly from that unforeseen--what d'ye call 'em?--avatar--incarnation. Under the shade of a lonely tree in thecourtyard, the villagers connected with the assault case sat in a picturesquegroup, looking like a chromo-lithograph of a camp in a book of Eastern travel.One missed the obligatory thread of smoke in the foreground and the pack-animals grazing. A blank yellow wall rose behind overtopping the tree, reflectingthe glare. The court-room was sombre, seemed more vast. High up in the dimspace the punkahs were swaying short to and fro, to and fro. Here and there adraped figure, dwarfed by the bare walls, remained without stirring amongst therows of empty benches, as if absorbed in pious meditation. The plaintiff, who hadbeen beaten,--an obese chocolate-coloured man with shaved head, one fatbreast bare and a bright yellow caste-mark above the bridge of his nose,--sat inpompous immobility: only his eyes glittered, rolling in the gloom, and the nostrilsdilated and collapsed violently as he breathed. Brierly dropped into his seatlooking done up, as though he had spent the night in sprinting on a cinder-track.The pious sailing-ship skipper appeared excited and made uneasy movements,as if restraining with difficulty an impulse to stand up and exhort us earnestly toprayer and repentance. The head of the magistrate, delicately pale under theneatly arranged hair, resembled the head of a hopeless invalid after he had beenwashed and brushed and propped up in bed. He moved aside the vase offlowers--a bunch of purple with a few pink blossoms on long stalks--and seizingin both hands a long sheet of bluish paper, ran his eye over it, propped hisforearms on the edge of the desk, and began to read aloud in an even, distinct,and careless voice.

'By Jove! For all my foolishness about scaffolds and heads rolling off--I assureyou it was infinitely worse than a beheading. A heavy sense of finality broodedover all this, unrelieved by the hope of rest and safety following the fall of theaxe. These proceedings had all the cold vengefulness of a death-sentence, andthe cruelty of a sentence of exile. This is how I looked at it that morning--andeven now I seem to see an undeniable vestige of truth in that exaggerated viewof a common occurrence. You may imagine how strongly I felt this at the time.Perhaps it is for that reason that I could not bring myself to admit the finality. Thething was always with me, I was always eager to take opinion on it, as though ithad not been practically settled: individual opinion--international opinion--byJove! That Frenchman's, for instance. His own country's pronouncement wasuttered in the passionless and definite phraseology a machine would use, ifmachines could speak. The head of the magistrate was half hidden by the paper,his brow was like alabaster.

'There were several questions before the court. The first as to whether the shipwas in every respect fit and seaworthy for the voyage. The court found she wasnot. The next point, I remember, was, whether up to the time of the accident theship had been navigated with proper and seamanlike care. They said Yes to that,goodness knows why, and then they declared that there was no evidence toshow the exact cause of the accident. A floating derelict probably. I myselfremember that a Norwegian barque bound out with a cargo of pitch-pine hadbeen given up as missing about that time, and it was just the sort of craft thatwould capsize in a squall and float bottom up for months--a kind of maritimeghoul on the prowl to kill ships in the dark. Such wandering corpses are commonenough in the North Atlantic, which is haunted by all the terrors of the sea,--fogs,icebergs, dead ships bent upon mischief, and long sinister gales that fasten uponone like a vampire till all the strength and the spirit and even hope are gone, andone feels like the empty shell of a man. But there--in those seas--the incidentwas rare enough to resemble a special arrangement of a malevolent providence,which, unless it had for its object the killing of a donkeyman and the bringing ofworse than death upon Jim, appeared an utterly aimless piece of devilry. Thisview occurring to me took off my attention. For a time I was aware of themagistrate's voice as a sound merely; but in a moment it shaped itself intodistinct words . . . "in utter disregard of their plain duty," it said. The nextsentence escaped me somehow, and then . . . "abandoning in the moment ofdanger the lives and property confided to their charge" . . . went on the voiceevenly, and stopped. A pair of eyes under the white forehead shot darkly aglance above the edge of the paper. I looked for Jim hurriedly, as though I hadexpected him to disappear. He was very still--but he was there. He sat pink andfair and extremely attentive. "Therefore, . . ." began the voice emphatically. Hestared with parted lips, hanging upon the words of the man behind the desk.These came out into the stillness wafted on the wind made by the punkahs, andI, watching for their effect upon him, caught only the fragments of officiallanguage. . . . "The Court. . . Gustav So-and-so . . . master . . . native of Germany. . . James So-and-so. . . mate . . . certificates cancelled." A silence fell. Themagistrate had dropped the paper, and, leaning sideways on the arm of his chair,began to talk with Brierly easily. People started to move out; others were pushingin, and I also made for the door. Outside I stood still, and when Jim passed meon his way to the gate, I caught at his arm and detained him. The look he gavediscomposed me, as though I had been responsible for his state he looked at meas if I had been the embodied evil of life. "It's all over," I stammered. "Yes," hesaid thickly. "And now let no man . . ." He jerked his arm out of my grasp. Iwatched his back as he went away. It was a long street, and he remained in sightfor some time. He walked rather slow, and straddling his legs a little, as if he hadfound it difficult to keep a straight line. Just before I lost him I fancied hestaggered a bit.

' "Man overboard," said a deep voice behind me. Turning round, I saw a fellow Iknew slightly, a West Australian; Chester was his name. He, too, had beenlooking after Jim. He was a man with an immense girth of chest, a rugged, clean-shaved face of mahogany colour, and two blunt tufts of iron-grey, thick, wiry hairson his upper lip. He had been pearler, wrecker, trader, whaler too, I believe; inhis own words--anything and everything a man may be at sea, but a pirate. ThePacific, north and south, was his proper hunting-ground; but he had wandered sofar afield looking for a cheap steamer to buy. Lately he had discovered--so hesaid--a guano island somewhere, but its approaches were dangerous, and theanchorage, such as it was, could not be considered safe, to say the least of it."As good as a gold-mine," he would exclaim. "Right bang in the middle of theWalpole Reefs, and if it's true enough that you can get no holding-groundanywhere in less than forty fathom, then what of that? There are the hurricanes,too. But it's a first-rate thing. As good as a gold-mine--better! Yet there's not afool of them that will see it. I can't get a skipper or a shipowner to go near theplace. So I made up my mind to cart the blessed stuff myself." . . . This was whathe required a steamer for, and I knew he was just then negotiatingenthusiastically with a Parsee firm for an old, brig-rigged, sea-anachronism ofninety horse-power. We had met and spoken together several times. He lookedknowingly after Jim.

' "Takes it to heart?" he asked scornfully. "Very much," I said. "Then he's nogood," he opined. "What's all the to-do about? A bit of ass's skin. That never yetmade a man. You must see things exactly as they are--if you don't, you may justas well give in at once. You will never do anything in this world. Look at me. Imade it a practice never to take anything to heart." "Yes," I said, "you see thingsas they are." "I wish I could see my partner coming along, that's what I wish tosee," he said. "Know my partner? Old Robinson. Yes; the Robinson. Don't youknow? The notorious Robinson. The man who smuggled more opium andbagged more seals in his time than any loose Johnny now alive. They say heused to board the sealing-schooners up Alaska way when the fog was so thickthat the Lord God, He alone, could tell one man from another. Holy-TerrorRobinson. That's the man. He is with me in that guano thing. The best chance heever came across in his life." He put his lips to my ear. "Cannibal?--well, theyused to give him the name years and years ago. You remember the story? Ashipwreck on the west side of Stewart Island; that's right; seven of them gotashore, and it seems they did not get on very well together. Some men are toocantankerous for anything--don't know how to make the best of a bad job--don'tsee things as they are--as they are, my boy! And then what's the consequence?Obvious! Trouble, trouble; as likely as not a knock on the head; and serve 'emright too. That sort is the most useful when it's dead. The story goes that a boatof Her Majesty's ship Wolverine found him kneeling on the kelp, naked as the dayhe was born, and chanting some psalm-tune or other; light snow was falling atthe time. He waited till the boat was an oar's length from the shore, and then upand away. They chased him for an hour up and down the boulders, till a mariheflung a stone that took him behind the ear providentially and knocked himsenseless. Alone? Of course. But that's like that tale of sealing-schooners; theLord God knows the right and the wrong of that story. The cutter did notinvestigate much. They wrapped him in a boat-cloak and took him off as quick asthey could, with a dark night coming on, the weather threatening, and the shipfiring recall guns every five minutes. Three weeks afterwards he was as well asever. He didn't allow any fuss that was made on shore to upset him; he just shuthis lips tight, and let people screech. It was bad enough to have lost his ship, andall he was worth besides, without paying attention to the hard names they calledhim. That's the man for me." He lifted his arm for a signal to some one down thestreet. "He's got a little money, so I had to let him into my thing. Had to! It wouldhave been sinful to throw away such a find, and I was cleaned out myself. It cutme to the quick, but I could see the matter just as it was, and if I must share--thinks I--with any man, then give me Robinson. I left him at breakfast in the hotelto come to court, because I've an idea. . . . Ah! Good morning, Captain Robinson.. . . Friend of mine, Captain Robinson."'An emaciated patriarch in a suit of white drill, a solah topi with a green-lined rimon a head trembling with age, joined us after crossing the street in a trottingshuffle, and stood propped with both hands on the handle of an umbrella. A whitebeard with amber streaks hung lumpily down to his waist. He blinked his creasedeyelids at me in a bewildered way. "How do you do? how do you do?" he pipedamiably, and tottered. "A little deaf," said Chester aside. "Did you drag him oversix thousand miles to get a cheap steamer?" I asked. "I would have taken himtwice round the world as soon as look at him," said Chester with immenseenergy. "The steamer will be the making of us, my lad. Is it my fault that everyskipper and shipowner in the whole of blessed Australasia turns out a blamedfool? Once I talked for three hours to a man in Auckland. 'Send a ship,' I said,'send a ship. I'll give you half of the first cargo for yourself, free gratis for nothing--just to make a good start.' Says he, 'I wouldn't do it if there was no other placeon earth to send a ship to.' Perfect ass, of course. Rocks, currents, noanchorage, sheer cliff to lay to, no insurance company would take the risk, didn'tsee how he could get loaded under three years. Ass! I nearly went on my kneesto him. 'But look at the thing as it is,' says I. 'Damn rocks and hurricanes. Look atit as it is. There's guano there Queensland sugar-planters would fight for--fight foron the quay, I tell you.' . . . What can you do with a fool? . . . 'That's one of yourlittle jokes, Chester,' he says. . . . Joke! I could have wept. Ask Captain Robinsonhere. . . . And there was another shipowning fellow--a fat chap in a whitewaistcoat in Wellington, who seemed to think I was up to some swindle or other.'I don't know what sort of fool you're looking for,' he says, 'but I am busy just now.Good morning.' I longed to take him in my two hands and smash him through thewindow of his own office. But I didn't. I was as mild as a curate. 'Think of it,' saysI. 'Do think it over. I'll call to-morrow.' He grunted something about being 'out allday.' On the stairs I felt ready to beat my head against the wall from vexation.Captain Robinson here can tell you. It was awful to think of all that lovely stufflying waste under the sun--stuff that would send the sugar-cane shooting sky-high. The making of Queensland! The making of Queensland! And in Brisbane,where I went to have a last try, they gave me the name of a lunatic. Idiots! Theonly sensible man I came across was the cabman who drove me about. Abroken-down swell he was, I fancy. Hey! Captain Robinson? You remember I toldyou about my cabby in Brisbane--don't you? The chap had a wonderful eye forthings. He saw it all in a jiffy. It was a real pleasure to talk with him. One eveningafter a devil of a day amongst shipowners I felt so bad that, says I, 'I must getdrunk. Come along; I must get drunk, or I'll go mad.' 'I am your man,' he says; 'goahead.' I don't know what I would have done without him. Hey! CaptainRobinson."

'He poked the ribs of his partner. "He! he! he!" laughed the Ancient, lookedaimlessly down the street, then peered at me doubtfully with sad, dim pupils. . . ."He! he! he!" . . . He leaned heavier on the umbrella, and dropped his gaze onthe ground. I needn't tell you I had tried to get away several times, but Chesterhad foiled every attempt by simply catching hold of my coat. "One minute. I've anotion." "What's your infernal notion?" I exploded at last. "If you think I am goingin with you . . ." "No, no, my boy. Too late, if you wanted ever so much. We've gota steamer." "You've got the ghost of a steamer," I said. "Good enough for a start-- there's no superior nonsense about us. Is there, Captain Robinson?" "No! no!no!" croaked the old man without lifting his eyes, and the senile tremble of hishead became almost fierce with determination. "I understand you know thatyoung chap," said Chester, with a nod at the street from which Jim haddisappeared long ago. "He's been having grub with you in the Malabar last night--so I was told."

'I said that was true, and after remarking that he too liked to live well and in style,only that, for the present, he had to be saving of every penny--"none too many forthe business! Isn't that so, Captain Robinson?"--he squared his shoulders andstroked his dumpy moustache, while the notorious Robinson, coughing at hisside, clung more than ever to the handle of the umbrella, and seemed ready tosubside passively into a heap of old bones. "You see, the old chap has all themoney," whispered Chester confidentially. "I've been cleaned out trying toengineer the dratted thing. But wait a bit, wait a bit. The good time is coming." . . .He seemed suddenly astonished at the signs of impatience I gave. "Oh, crakee!"he cried; "I am telling you of the biggest thing that ever was, and you . . ." "I havean appointment," I pleaded mildly. "What of that?" he asked with genuinesurprise; "let it wait." "That's exactly what I am doing now," I remarked; "hadn'tyou better tell me what it is you want?" "Buy twenty hotels like that," he growledto himself; "and every joker boarding in them too-- twenty times over." He liftedhis head smartly "I want that young chap." "I don't understand," I said. "He's nogood, is he?" said Chester crisply. "I know nothing about it," I protested. "Why,you told me yourself he was taking it to heart," argued Chester. "Well, in myopinion a chap who . . . Anyhow, he can't be much good; but then you see I amon the look-out for somebody, and I've just got a thing that will suit him. I'll givehim a job on my island." He nodded significantly. "I'm going to dump forty cooliesthere--if I've to steal 'em. Somebody must work the stuff. Oh! I mean to actsquare: wooden shed, corrugated-iron roof--I know a man in Hobart who will takemy bill at six months for the materials. I do. Honour bright. Then there's thewater-supply. I'll have to fly round and get somebody to trust me for half-a-dozensecond-hand iron tanks. Catch rain-water, hey? Let him take charge. Make himsupreme boss over the coolies. Good idea, isn't it? What do you say?" "There arewhole years when not a drop of rain falls on Walpole," I said, too amazed tolaugh. He bit his lip and seemed bothered. "Oh, well, I will fix up something forthem--or land a supply. Hang it all! That's not the question."

'I said nothing. I had a rapid vision of Jim perched on a shadowless rock, up tohis knees in guano, with the screams of sea-birds in his ears, the incandescentball of the sun above his head; the empty sky and the empty ocean all a-quiver,simmering together in the heat as far as the eye could reach. "I wouldn't advisemy worst enemy . . ." I began. "What's the matter with you?" cried Chester; "Imean to give him a good screw--that is, as soon as the thing is set going, ofcourse. It's as easy as falling off a log. Simply nothing to do; two six-shooters inhis belt . . . Surely he wouldn't be afraid of anything forty coolies could do--withtwo six-shooters and he the only armed man too! It's much better than it looks. Iwant you to help me to talk him over." "No!" I shouted. Old Robinson lifted hisbleared eyes dismally for a moment, Chester looked at me with infinite contempt."So you wouldn't advise him?" he uttered slowly. "Certainly not," I answered, asindignant as though he had requested me to help murder somebody; "moreover,I am sure he wouldn't. He is badly cut up, but he isn't mad as far as I know." "Heis no earthly good for anything," Chester mused aloud. "He would just have donefor me. If you only could see a thing as it is, you would see it's the very thing forhim. And besides . . . Why! it's the most splendid, sure chance . . ." He got angrysuddenly. "I must have a man. There! . . ." He stamped his foot and smiledunpleasantly. "Anyhow, I could guarantee the island wouldn't sink under him--andI believe he is a bit particular on that point." "Good morning," I said curtly. Helooked at me as though I had been an incomprehensible fool. . . . "Must bemoving, Captain Robinson," he yelled suddenly into the old man's ear. "TheseParsee Johnnies are waiting for us to clinch the bargain." He took his partnerunder the arm with a firm grip, swung him round, and, unexpectedly, leered at meover his shoulder. "I was trying to do him a kindness," he asserted, with an airand tone that made my blood boil. "Thank you for nothing--in his name," Irejoined. "Oh! you are devilish smart," he sneered; "but you are like the rest ofthem. Too much in the clouds. See what you will do with him." "I don't know that Iwant to do anything with him." "Don't you?" he spluttered; his grey moustachebristled with anger, and by his side the notorious Robinson, propped on theumbrella, stood with his back to me, as patient and still as a worn-out cab-horse."I haven't found a guano island," I said. "It's my belief you wouldn't know one ifyou were led right up to it by the hand," he riposted quickly; "and in this worldyou've got to see a thing first, before you can make use of it. Got to see it throughand through at that, neither more nor less." "And get others to see it, too," Iinsinuated, with a glance at the bowed back by his side. Chester snorted at me."His eyes are right enough--don't you worry. He ain't a puppy." "Oh, dear, no!" Isaid. "Come along, Captain Robinson," he shouted, with a sort of bullyingdeference under the rim of the old man's hat; the Holy Terror gave a submissivelittle jump. The ghost of a steamer was waiting for them, Fortune on that fair isle!They made a curious pair of Argonauts. Chester strode on leisurely, well set up,portly, and of conquering mien; the other, long, wasted, drooping, and hooked tohis arm, shuffled his withered shanks with desperate haste.' Chapter 15

'I did not start in search of Jim at once, only because I had really an appointmentwhich I could not neglect. Then, as ill-luck would have it, in my agent's office Iwas fastened upon by a fellow fresh from Madagascar with a little scheme for awonderful piece of business. It had something to do with cattle and cartridgesand a Prince Ravonalo something; but the pivot of the whole affair was thestupidity of some admiral--Admiral Pierre, I think. Everything turned on that, andthe chap couldn't find words strong enough to express his confidence. He hadglobular eyes starting out of his head with a fishy glitter, bumps on his forehead,and wore his long hair brushed back without a parting. He had a favourite phrasewhich he kept on repeating triumphantly, "The minimum of risk with the maximumof profit is my motto. What?" He made my head ache, spoiled my tiffin, but gothis own out of me all right; and as soon as I had shaken him off, I made straightfor the water-side. I caught sight of Jim leaning over the parapet of the quay.Three native boatmen quarrelling over five annas were making an awful row athis elbow. He didn't hear me come up, but spun round as if the slight contact ofmy finger had released a catch. "I was looking," he stammered. I don't rememberwhat I said, not much anyhow, but he made no difficulty in following me to thehotel.

'He followed me as manageable as a little child, with an obedient air, with no sortof manifestation, rather as though he had been waiting for me there to comealong and carry him off. I need not have been so surprised as I was at histractability. On all the round earth, which to some seems so big and that othersaffect to consider as rather smaller than a mustard-seed, he had no place wherehe could--what shall I say?--where he could withdraw. That's it! Withdraw--bealone with his loneliness. He walked by my side very calm, glancing here andthere, and once turned his head to look after a Sidiboy fireman in a cutaway coatand yellowish trousers, whose black face had silky gleams like a lump ofanthracite coal. I doubt, however, whether he saw anything, or even remained allthe time aware of my companionship, because if I had not edged him to the lefthere, or pulled him to the right there, I believe he would have gone straightbefore him in any direction till stopped by a wall or some other obstacle. I steeredhim into my bedroom, and sat down at once to write letters. This was the onlyplace in the world (unless, perhaps, the Walpole Reef--but that was not sohandy) where he could have it out with himself without being bothered by the restof the universe. The damned thing--as he had expressed it--had not made himinvisible, but I behaved exactly as though he were. No sooner in my chair I bentover my writing-desk like a medieval scribe, and, but for the movement of thehand holding the pen, remained anxiously quiet. I can't say I was frightened; but Icertainly kept as still as if there had been something dangerous in the room, thatat the first hint of a movement on my part would be provoked to pounce upon me.'There was not much in the room--you know how these bedrooms are--a sort offour-poster bedstead under a mosquito-net, two or three chairs, the table I waswriting at, a bare floor. A glass door opened on an upstairs verandah, and hestood with his face to it, having a hard time with all possible privacy. Dusk fell; I lita candle with the greatest economy of movement and as much prudence asthough it were an illegal proceeding. There is no doubt that he had a very hardtime of it, and so had I, even to the point, I must own, of wishing him to the devil,or on Walpole Reef at least. It occurred to me once or twice that, after all,Chester was, perhaps, the man to deal effectively with such a disaster. Thatstrange idealist had found a practical use for it at once--unerringly, as it were. Itwas enough to make one suspect that, maybe, he really could see the trueaspect of things that appeared mysterious or utterly hopeless to less imaginativepersons. I wrote and wrote; I liquidated all the arrears of my correspondence, andthen went on writing to people who had no reason whatever to expect from me agossipy letter about nothing at all. At times I stole a sidelong glance. He wasrooted to the spot, but convulsive shudders ran down his back; his shoulderswould heave suddenly. He was fighting, he was fighting--mostly for his breath, asit seemed. The massive shadows, cast all one way from the straight flame of thecandle, seemed possessed of gloomy consciousness; the immobility of thefurniture had to my furtive eye an air of attention. I was becoming fanciful in themidst of my industrious scribbling; and though, when the scratching of my penstopped for a moment, there was complete silence and stillness in the room, Isuffered from that profound disturbance and confusion of thought which iscaused by a violent and menacing uproar--of a heavy gale at sea, for instance.Some of you may know what I mean: that mingled anxiety, distress, and irritationwith a sort of craven feeling creeping in--not pleasant to acknowledge, but whichgives a quite special merit to one's endurance. I don't claim any merit forstanding the stress of Jim's emotions; I could take refuge in the letters; I couldhave written to strangers if necessary. Suddenly, as I was taking up a fresh sheetof notepaper, I heard a low sound, the first sound that, since we had been shutup together, had come to my ears in the dim stillness of the room. I remainedwith my head down, with my hand arrested. Those who have kept vigil by a sick-bed have heard such faint sounds in the stillness of the night watches, soundswrung from a racked body, from a weary soul. He pushed the glass door withsuch force that all the panes rang: he stepped out, and I held my breath, strainingmy ears without knowing what else I expected to hear. He was really taking toomuch to heart an empty formality which to Chester's rigorous criticism seemedunworthy the notice of a man who could see things as they were. An emptyformality; a piece of parchment. Well, well. As to an inaccessible guano deposit,that was another story altogether. One could intelligibly break one's heart overthat. A feeble burst of many voices mingled with the tinkle of silver and glassfloated up from the dining-room below; through the open door the outer edge ofthe light from my candle fell on his back faintly; beyond all was black; he stood onthe brink of a vast obscurity, like a lonely figure by the shore of a sombre andhopeless ocean.

'There was the Walpole Reef in it--to be sure--a speck in the dark void, a strawfor the drowning man. My compassion for him took the shape of the thought that Iwouldn't have liked his people to see him at that moment. I found it trying myself.His back was no longer shaken by his gasps; he stood straight as an arrow,faintly visible and still; and the meaning of this stillness sank to the bottom of mysoul like lead into the water, and made it so heavy that for a second I wishedheartily that the only course left open for me was to pay for his funeral. Even thelaw had done with him. To bury him would have been such an easy kindness! Itwould have been so much in accordance with the wisdom of life, which consistsin putting out of sight all the reminders of our folly, of our weakness, of ourmortality; all that makes against our efficiency--the memory of our failures, thehints of our undying fears, the bodies of our dead friends. Perhaps he did take ittoo much to heart. And if so then-- Chester's offer. . . . At this point I took up afresh sheet and began to write resolutely. There was nothing but myself betweenhim and the dark ocean. I had a sense of responsibility. If I spoke, would thatmotionless and suffering youth leap into the obscurity--clutch at the straw? Ifound out how difficult it may be sometimes to make a sound. There is a weirdpower in a spoken word. And why the devil not? I was asking myself persistentlywhile I drove on with my writing. All at once, on the blank page, under the verypoint of the pen, the two figures of Chester and his antique partner, very distinctand complete, would dodge into view with stride and gestures, as if reproducedin the field of some optical toy. I would watch them for a while. No! They were toophantasmal and extravagant to enter into any one's fate. And a word carries far--very far--deals destruction through time as the bullets go flying through space. Isaid nothing; and he, out there with his back to the light, as if bound and gaggedby all the invisible foes of man, made no stir and made no sound.' Chapter 16

'The time was coming when I should see him loved, trusted, admired, with alegend of strength and prowess forming round his name as though he had beenthe stuff of a hero. It's true--I assure you; as true as I'm sitting here talking abouthim in vain. He, on his side, had that faculty of beholding at a hint the face of hisdesire and the shape of his dream, without which the earth would know no loverand no adventurer. He captured much honour and an Arcadian happiness (Iwon't say anything about innocence) in the bush, and it was as good to him asthe honour and the Arcadian happiness of the streets to another man. Felicity,felicity--how shall I say it?--is quaffed out of a golden cup in every latitude: theflavour is with you--with you alone, and you can make it as intoxicating as youplease. He was of the sort that would drink deep, as you may guess from whatwent before. I found him, if not exactly intoxicated, then at least flushed with theelixir at his lips. He had not obtained it at once. There had been, as you know, aperiod of probation amongst infernal ship-chandlers, during which he hadsuffered and I had worried about--about--my trust--you may call it. I don't knowthat I am completely reassured now, after beholding him in all his brilliance. Thatwas my last view of him--in a strong light, dominating, and yet in complete accordwith his surroundings--with the life of the forests and with the life of men. I ownthat I was impressed, but I must admit to myself that after all this is not the lastingimpression. He was protected by his isolation, alone of his own superior kind, inclose touch with Nature, that keeps faith on such easy terms with her lovers. ButI cannot fix before my eye the image of his safety. I shall always remember himas seen through the open door of my room, taking, perhaps, too much to heartthe mere consequences of his failure. I am pleased, of course, that some good--and even some splendour--came out of my endeavours; but at times it seems tome it would have been better for my peace of mind if I had not stood betweenhim and Chester's confoundedly generous offer. I wonder what his exuberantimagination would have made of Walpole islet--that most hopelessly forsakencrumb of dry land on the face of the waters. It is not likely I would ever haveheard, for I must tell you that Chester, after calling at some Australian port topatch up his brig-rigged sea-anachronism, steamed out into the Pacific with acrew of twenty-two hands all told, and the only news having a possible bearingupon the mystery of his fate was the news of a hurricane which is supposed tohave swept in its course over the Walpole shoals, a month or so afterwards. Nota vestige of the Argonauts ever turned up; not a sound came out of the waste.Finis! The Pacific is the most discreet of live, hot-tempered oceans: the chillyAntarctic can keep a secret too, but more in the manner of a grave.

'And there is a sense of blessed finality in such discretion, which is what we allmore or less sincerely are ready to admit--for what else is it that makes the ideaof death supportable? End! Finis! the potent word that exorcises from the houseof life the haunting shadow of fate. This is what--notwithstanding the testimony ofmy eyes and his own earnest assurances--I miss when I look back upon Jim'ssuccess. While there's life there is hope, truly; but there is fear too. I don't meanto say that I regret my action, nor will I pretend that I can't sleep o' nights inconsequence; still, the idea obtrudes itself that he made so much of his disgracewhile it is the guilt alone that matters. He was not--if I may say so--clear to me.He was not clear. And there is a suspicion he was not clear to himself either.There were his fine sensibilities, his fine feelings, his fine longings--a sort ofsublimated, idealised selfishness. He was--if you allow me to say so--very fine;very fine--and very unfortunate. A little coarser nature would not have borne thestrain; it would have had to come to terms with itself--with a sigh, with a grunt, oreven with a guffaw; a still coarser one would have remained invulnerably ignorantand completely uninteresting.

'But he was too interesting or too unfortunate to be thrown to the dogs, or even toChester. I felt this while I sat with my face over the paper and he fought andgasped, struggling for his breath in that terribly stealthy way, in my room; I felt itwhen he rushed out on the verandah as if to fling himself over--and didn't; I felt itmore and more all the time he remained outside, faintly lighted on thebackground of night, as if standing on the shore of a sombre and hopeless sea.

'An abrupt heavy rumble made me lift my head. The noise seemed to roll away,and suddenly a searching and violent glare fell on the blind face of the night. Thesustained and dazzling flickers seemed to last for an unconscionable time. Thegrowl of the thunder increased steadily while I looked at him, distinct and black,planted solidly upon the shores of a sea of light. At the moment of greatestbrilliance the darkness leaped back with a culminating crash, and he vanishedbefore my dazzled eyes as utterly as though he had been blown to atoms. Ablustering sigh passed; furious hands seemed to tear at the shrubs, shake thetops of the trees below, slam doors, break window-panes, all along the front ofthe building. He stepped in, closing the door behind him, and found me bendingover the table: my sudden anxiety as to what he would say was very great, andakin to a fright. "May I have a cigarette?" he asked. I gave a push to the boxwithout raising my head. "I want--want--tobacco," he muttered. I becameextremely buoyant. "Just a moment." I grunted pleasantly. He took a few stepshere and there. "That's over," I heard him say. A single distant clap of thundercame from the sea like a gun of distress. "The monsoon breaks up early thisyear," he remarked conversationally, somewhere behind me. This encouragedme to turn round, which I did as soon as I had finished addressing the lastenvelope. He was smoking greedily in the middle of the room, and though heheard the stir I made, he remained with his back to me for a time.

' "Come--I carried it off pretty well," he said, wheeling suddenly. "Something'spaid off--not much. I wonder what's to come." His face did not show any emotion,only it appeared a little darkened and swollen, as though he had been holding hisbreath. He smiled reluctantly as it were, and went on while I gazed up at himmutely. . . . "Thank you, though--your room--jolly convenient--for a chap--badlyhipped." . . . The rain pattered and swished in the garden; a water-pipe (it musthave had a hole in it) performed just outside the window a parody of blubberingwoe with funny sobs and gurgling lamentations, interrupted by jerky spasms ofsilence. . . . "A bit of shelter," he mumbled and ceased.

'A flash of faded lightning darted in through the black framework of the windowsand ebbed out without any noise. I was thinking how I had best approach him (Idid not want to be flung off again) when he gave a little laugh. "No better than avagabond now" . . . the end of the cigarette smouldered between his fingers . . ."without a single--single," he pronounced slowly; "and yet . . ." He paused; therain fell with redoubled violence. "Some day one's bound to come upon somesort of chance to get it all back again. Must!" he whispered distinctly, glaring atmy boots.

'I did not even know what it was he wished so much to regain, what it was he hadso terribly missed. It might have been so much that it was impossible to say. Apiece of ass's skin, according to Chester. . . . He looked up at me inquisitively."Perhaps. If life's long enough," I muttered through my teeth with unreasonableanimosity. "Don't reckon too much on it."

' "Jove! I feel as if nothing could ever touch me," he said in a tone of sombreconviction. "If this business couldn't knock me over, then there's no fear of therebeing not enough time to--climb out, and . . ." He looked upwards.

'It struck me that it is from such as he that the great army of waifs and strays isrecruited, the army that marches down, down into all the gutters of the earth. Assoon as he left my room, that "bit of shelter," he would take his place in theranks, and begin the journey towards the bottomless pit. I at least had noillusions; but it was I, too, who a moment ago had been so sure of the power ofwords, and now was afraid to speak, in the same way one dares not move forfear of losing a slippery hold. It is when we try to grapple with another man'sintimate need that we perceive how incomprehensible, wavering, and misty arethe beings that share with us the sight of the stars and the warmth of the sun. It isas if loneliness were a hard and absolute condition of existence; the envelope offlesh and blood on which our eyes are fixed melts before the outstretched hand,and there remains only the capricious, unconsolable, and elusive spirit that noeye can follow, no hand can grasp. It was the fear of losing him that kept mesilent, for it was borne upon me suddenly and with unaccountable force thatshould I let him slip away into the darkness I would never forgive myself.

word to . . . Uncommonly! I don't know why, I am sure. I am afraid I don't feel asgrateful as I would if the whole thing hadn't been so brutally sprung on me.Because at bottom . . . you, yourself . . ." He stuttered.

' "Possibly," I struck in. He frowned.

' "All the same, one is responsible." He watched me like a hawk.

' "And that's true, too," I said.

' "Well. I've gone with it to the end, and I don't intend to let any man cast it in myteeth without--without--resenting it." He clenched his fist.

' "There's yourself," I said with a smile--mirthless enough, God knows--but he

looked at me menacingly. "That's my business," he said. An air of indomitableresolution came and went upon his face like a vain and passing shadow. Nextmoment he looked a dear good boy in trouble, as before. He flung away thecigarette. "Good-bye," he said, with the sudden haste of a man who had lingeredtoo long in view of a pressing bit of work waiting for him; and then for a second orso he made not the slightest movement. The downpour fell with the heavyuninterrupted rush of a sweeping flood, with a sound of unchecked overwhelmingfury that called to one's mind the images of collapsing bridges, of uprooted trees,of undermined mountains. No man could breast the colossal and headlongstream that seemed to break and swirl against the dim stillness in which we wereprecariously sheltered as if on an island. The perforated pipe gurgled, choked,spat, and splashed in odious ridicule of a swimmer fighting for his life. "It israining," I remonstrated, "and I . . ." "Rain or shine," he began brusquely,checked himself, and walked to the window. "Perfect deluge," he muttered after awhile: he leaned his forehead on the glass. "It's dark, too."

' "Yes, it is very dark," I said.

'He pivoted on his heels, crossed the room, and had actually opened the doorleading into the corridor before I leaped up from my chair. "Wait," I cried, "I wantyou to . . ." "I can't dine with you again to-night," he flung at me, with one leg outof the room already. "I haven't the slightest intention to ask you," I shouted. Atthis he drew back his foot, but remained mistrustfully in the very doorway. I lostno time in entreating him earnestly not to be absurd; to come in and shut thedoor.' Chapter 17

'He came in at last; but I believe it was mostly the rain that did it; it was falling justthen with a devastating violence which quieted down gradually while we talked.His manner was very sober and set; his bearing was that of a naturally taciturnman possessed by an idea. My talk was of the material aspect of his position; ithad the sole aim of saving him from the degradation, ruin, and despair that outthere close so swiftly upon a friendless, homeless man; I pleaded with him toaccept my help; I argued reasonably: and every time I looked up at that absorbedsmooth face, so grave and youthful, I had a disturbing sense of being no help butrather an obstacle to some mysterious, inexplicable, impalpable striving of hiswounded spirit.

' "I suppose you intend to eat and drink and to sleep under shelter in the usualway," I remember saying with irritation. "You say you won't touch the money thatis due to you." . . . He came as near as his sort can to making a gesture of horror.(There were three weeks and five days' pay owing him as mate of the Patna.)"Well, that's too little to matter anyhow; but what will you do to-morrow? Wherewill you turn? You must live . . ." "That isn't the thing," was the comment thatescaped him under his breath. I ignored it, and went on combating what Iassumed to be the scruples of an exaggerated delicacy. "On every conceivableground," I concluded, "you must let me help you." "You can't," he said very simplyand gently, and holding fast to some deep idea which I could detect shimmeringlike a pool of water in the dark, but which I despaired of ever approaching nearenough to fathom. I surveyed his well-proportioned bulk. "At any rate," I said, "Iam able to help what I can see of you. I don't pretend to do more." He shook hishead sceptically without looking at me. I got very warm. "But I can," I insisted. "Ican do even more. I am doing more. I am trusting you . . ." "The money . . ." hebegan. "Upon my word you deserve being told to go to the devil," I cried, forcingthe note of indignation. He was startled, smiled, and I pressed my attack home."It isn't a question of money at all. You are too superficial," I said (and at thesame time I was thinking to myself: Well, here goes! And perhaps he is, after all)."Look at the letter I want you to take. I am writing to a man of whom I've neverasked a favour, and I am writing about you in terms that one only ventures to usewhen speaking of an intimate friend. I make myself unreservedly responsible foryou. That's what I am doing. And really if you will only reflect a little what thatmeans . . ."

'He lifted his head. The rain had passed away; only the water-pipe went onshedding tears with an absurd drip, drip outside the window. It was very quiet inthe room, whose shadows huddled together in corners, away from the still flameof the candle flaring upright in the shape of a dagger; his face after a whileseemed suffused by a reflection of a soft light as if the dawn had broken already.' "Jove!" he gasped out. "It is noble of you!"

'Had he suddenly put out his tongue at me in derision, I could not have felt morehumiliated. I thought to myself--Serve me right for a sneaking humbug. . . . Hiseyes shone straight into my face, but I perceived it was not a mocking brightness.All at once he sprang into jerky agitation, like one of those flat wooden figuresthat are worked by a string. His arms went up, then came down with a slap. Hebecame another man altogether. "And I had never seen," he shouted; thensuddenly bit his lip and frowned. "What a bally ass I've been," he said very slowin an awed tone. . . . "You are a brick! " he cried next in a muffled voice. Hesnatched my hand as though he had just then seen it for the first time, anddropped it at once. "Why! this is what I--you--I . . ." he stammered, and then witha return of his old stolid, I may say mulish, manner he began heavily, "I would bea brute now if I . . ." and then his voice seemed to break. "That's all right," I said. Iwas almost alarmed by this display of feeling, through which pierced a strangeelation. I had pulled the string accidentally, as it were; I did not fully understandthe working of the toy. "I must go now," he said. "Jove! You have helped me.Can't sit still. The very thing . . ." He looked at me with puzzled admiration. "Thevery thing . . ."

'Of course it was the thing. It was ten to one that I had saved him from starvation--of that peculiar sort that is almost invariably associated with drink. This was all. Ihad not a single illusion on that score, but looking at him, I allowed myself towonder at the nature of the one he had, within the last three minutes, soevidently taken into his bosom. I had forced into his hand the means to carry ondecently the serious business of life, to get food, drink, and shelter of thecustomary kind while his wounded spirit, like a bird with a broken wing, might hopand flutter into some hole to die quietly of inanition there. This is what I had thrustupon him: a definitely small thing; and--behold!--by the manner of its reception itloomed in the dim light of the candle like a big, indistinct, perhaps a dangerousshadow. "You don't mind me not saying anything appropriate," he burst out."There isn't anything one could say. Last night already you had done me no endof good. Listening to me--you know. I give you my word I've thought more thanonce the top of my head would fly off. . ." He darted--positively darted--here andthere, rammed his hands into his pockets, jerked them out again, flung his cap onhis head. I had no idea it was in him to be so airily brisk. I thought of a dry leafimprisoned in an eddy of wind, while a mysterious apprehension, a load ofindefinite doubt, weighed me down in my chair. He stood stock-still, as if struckmotionless by a discovery. "You have given me confidence," he declared,soberly. "Oh! for God's sake, my dear fellow--don't!" I entreated, as though hehad hurt me. "All right. I'll shut up now and henceforth. Can't prevent me thinkingthough. . . . Never mind! . . . I'll show yet . . ." He went to the door in a hurry,paused with his head down, and came back, stepping deliberately. "I alwaysthought that if a fellow could begin with a clean slate . . . And now you . . . in ameasure . . . yes . . . clean slate." I waved my hand, and he marched out withoutlooking back; the sound of his footfalls died out gradually behind the closed door--the unhesitating tread of a man walking in broad daylight.

'But as to me, left alone with the solitary candle, I remained strangelyunenlightened. I was no longer young enough to behold at every turn themagnificence that besets our insignificant footsteps in good and in evil. I smiledto think that, after all, it was yet he, of us two, who had the light. And I felt sad. Aclean slate, did he say? As if the initial word of each our destiny were not gravenin imperishable characters upon the face of a rock.' Chapter 18

'Six months afterwards my friend (he was a cynical, more than middle-agedbachelor, with a reputation for eccentricity, and owned a rice-mill) wrote to me,and judging, from the warmth of my recommendation, that I would like to hear,enlarged a little upon Jim's perfections. These were apparently of a quiet andeffective sort. "Not having been able so far to find more in my heart than aresigned toleration for any individual of my kind, I have lived till now alone in ahouse that even in this steaming climate could be considered as too big for oneman. I have had him to live with me for some time past. It seems I haven't madea mistake." It seemed to me on reading this letter that my friend had found in hisheart more than tolerance for Jim--that there were the beginnings of active liking.Of course he stated his grounds in a characteristic way. For one thing, Jim kepthis freshness in the climate. Had he been a girl--my friend wrote--one could havesaid he was blooming-- blooming modestly--like a violet, not like some of theseblatant tropical flowers. He had been in the house for six weeks, and had not asyet attempted to slap him on the back, or address him as "old boy," or try tomake him feel a superannuated fossil. He had nothing of the exasperating youngman's chatter. He was good-tempered, had not much to say for himself, was notclever by any means, thank goodness--wrote my friend. It appeared, however,that Jim was clever enough to be quietly appreciative of his wit, while, on theother hand, he amused him by his naiveness. "The dew is yet on him, and since Ihad the bright idea of giving him a room in the house and having him at meals Ifeel less withered myself. The other day he took it into his head to cross the roomwith no other purpose but to open a door for me; and I felt more in touch withmankind than I had been for years. Ridiculous, isn't it? Of course I guess there issomething--some awful little scrape-- which you know all about--but if I am surethat it is terribly heinous, I fancy one could manage to forgive it. For my part, Ideclare I am unable to imagine him guilty of anything much worse than robbingan orchard. Is it much worse? Perhaps you ought to have told me; but it is such along time since we both turned saints that you may have forgotten we, too, hadsinned in our time? It may be that some day I shall have to ask you, and then Ishall expect to be told. I don't care to question him myself till I have some ideawhat it is. Moreover, it's too soon as yet. Let him open the door a few times morefor me. . . ." Thus my friend. I was trebly pleased-- at Jim's shaping so well, at thetone of the letter, at my own cleverness. Evidently I had known what I was doing.I had read characters aright, and so on. And what if something unexpected andwonderful were to come of it? That evening, reposing in a deck-chair under theshade of my own poop awning (it was in Hong-Kong harbour), I laid on Jim'sbehalf the first stone of a castle in Spain.

'I made a trip to the northward, and when I returned I found another letter frommy friend waiting for me. It was the first envelope I tore open. "There are nospoons missing, as far as I know," ran the first line; "I haven't been interestedenough to inquire. He is gone, leaving on the breakfast-table a formal little noteof apology, which is either silly or heartless. Probably both--and it's all one to me.Allow me to say, lest you should have some more mysterious young men inreserve, that I have shut up shop, definitely and for ever. This is the lasteccentricity I shall be guilty of. Do not imagine for a moment that I care a hang;but he is very much regretted at tennis-parties, and for my own sake I've told aplausible lie at the club. . . ." I flung the letter aside and started looking throughthe batch on my table, till I came upon Jim's handwriting. Would you believe it?One chance in a hundred! But it is always that hundredth chance! That littlesecond engineer of the Patna had turned up in a more or less destitute state, andgot a temporary job of looking after the machinery of the mill. "I couldn't stand thefamiliarity of the little beast," Jim wrote from a seaport seven hundred miles southof the place where he should have been in clover. "I am now for the time withEgstrom & Blake, ship-chandlers, as their--well-- runner, to call the thing by itsright name. For reference I gave them your name, which they know of course,and if you could write a word in my favour it would be a permanent employment."I was utterly crushed under the ruins of my castle, but of course I wrote asdesired. Before the end of the year my new charter took me that way, and I hadan opportunity of seeing him.

'He was still with Egstrom & Blake, and we met in what they called "our parlour"opening out of the store. He had that moment come in from boarding a ship, andconfronted me head down, ready for a tussle. "What have you got to say foryourself?" I began as soon as we had shaken hands. "What I wrote you--nothingmore," he said stubbornly. "Did the fellow blab--or what?" I asked. He looked upat me with a troubled smile. "Oh, no! He didn't. He made it a kind of confidentialbusiness between us. He was most damnably mysterious whenever I came overto the mill; he would wink at me in a respectful manner--as much as to say 'Weknow what we know.' Infernally fawning and familiar--and that sort of thing . . ."He threw himself into a chair and stared down his legs. "One day we happenedto be alone and the fellow had the cheek to say, 'Well, Mr. James'--I was calledMr. James there as if I had been the son-- 'here we are together once more. Thisis better than the old ship-- ain't it?' . . . Wasn't it appalling, eh? I looked at him,and he put on a knowing air. 'Don't you be uneasy, sir,' he says. 'I know agentleman when I see one, and I know how a gentleman feels. I hope, though,you will be keeping me on this job. I had a hard time of it too, along of that rottenold Patna racket.' Jove! It was awful. I don't know what I should have said ordone if I had not just then heard Mr. Denver calling me in the passage. It wastiffin-time, and we walked together across the yard and through the garden to thebungalow. He began to chaff me in his kindly way . . . I believe he liked me . . ."

'Jim was silent for a while.

' "I know he liked me. That's what made it so hard. Such a splendid man! . . .That morning he slipped his hand under my arm. . . . He, too, was familiar withme." He burst into a short laugh, and dropped his chin on his breast. "Pah! WhenI remembered how that mean little beast had been talking to me," he begansuddenly in a vibrating voice, "I couldn't bear to think of myself . . . I suppose youknow . . ." I nodded. . . . "More like a father," he cried; his voice sank. "I wouldhave had to tell him. I couldn't let it go on--could I?" "Well?" I murmured, afterwaiting a while. "I preferred to go," he said slowly; "this thing must be buried."

'We could hear in the shop Blake upbraiding Egstrom in an abusive, strainedvoice. They had been associated for many years, and every day from themoment the doors were opened to the last minute before closing, Blake, a littleman with sleek, jetty hair and unhappy, beady eyes, could be heard rowing hispartner incessantly with a sort of scathing and plaintive fury. The sound of thateverlasting scolding was part of the place like the other fixtures; even strangerswould very soon come to disregard it completely unless it be perhaps to mutter"Nuisance," or to get up suddenly and shut the door of the "parlour." Egstromhimself, a raw-boned, heavy Scandinavian, with a busy manner and immenseblonde whiskers, went on directing his people, checking parcels, making out billsor writing letters at a stand-up desk in the shop, and comported himself in thatclatter exactly as though he had been stone-deaf. Now and again he would emita bothered perfunctory "Sssh," which neither produced nor was expected toproduce the slightest effect. "They are very decent to me here," said Jim. "Blake'sa little cad, but Egstrom's all right." He stood up quickly, and walking withmeasured steps to a tripod telescope standing in the window and pointed at theroadstead, he applied his eye to it. "There's that ship which has been becalmedoutside all the morning has got a breeze now and is coming in," he remarkedpatiently; "I must go and board." We shook hands in silence, and he turned to go."Jim!" I cried. He looked round with his hand on the lock. "You--you have thrownaway something like a fortune." He came back to me all the way from the door."Such a splendid old chap," he said. "How could I? How could I?" His lipstwitched. "Here it does not matter." "Oh! you--you--" I began, and had to castabout for a suitable word, but before I became aware that there was no namethat would just do, he was gone. I heard outside Egstrom's deep gentle voicesaying cheerily, "That's the Sarah W. Granger, Jimmy. You must manage to befirst aboard"; and directly Blake struck in, screaming after the manner of anoutraged cockatoo, "Tell the captain we've got some of his mail here. That'll fetchhim. D'ye hear, Mister What's-your-name?" And there was Jim answeringEgstrom with something boyish in his tone. "All right. I'll make a race of it." Heseemed to take refuge in the boat-sailing part of that sorry business.

'I did not see him again that trip, but on my next (I had a six months' charter) Iwent up to the store. Ten yards away from the door Blake's scolding met myears, and when I came in he gave me a glance of utter wretchedness; Egstrom,all smiles, advanced, extending a large bony hand. "Glad to see you, captain. . . .Sssh. . . . Been thinking you were about due back here. What did you say, sir? . .. Sssh. . . . Oh! him! He has left us. Come into the parlour." . . . After the slam ofthe door Blake's strained voice became faint, as the voice of one scoldingdesperately in a wilderness. . . . "Put us to a great inconvenience, too. Used usbadly--I must say . . ." "Where's he gone to? Do you know?" I asked. "No. It's nouse asking either," said Egstrom, standing bewhiskered and obliging before mewith his arms hanging down his sides clumsily, and a thin silver watch-chainlooped very low on a rucked-up blue serge waistcoat. "A man like that don't goanywhere in particular." I was too concerned at the news to ask for theexplanation of that pronouncement, and he went on. "He left--let's see--the veryday a steamer with returning pilgrims from the Red Sea put in here with twoblades of her propeller gone. Three weeks ago now." "Wasn't there somethingsaid about the Patna case?" I asked, fearing the worst. He gave a start, andlooked at me as if I had been a sorcerer.

'"Why, yes! How do you know? Some of them were talking about it here. Therewas a captain or two, the manager of Vanlo's engineering shop at the harbour,two or three others, and myself. Jim was in here too, having a sandwich and aglass of beer; when we are busy--you see, captain--there's no time for a propertiffin. He was standing by this table eating sandwiches, and the rest of us wereround the telescope watching that steamer come in; and by-and-by Vanlo'smanager began to talk about the chief of the Patna; he had done some repairsfor him once, and from that he went on to tell us what an old ruin she was, andthe money that had been made out of her. He came to mention her last voyage,and then we all struck in. Some said one thing and some another--not'much--what you or any other man might say; and there was some laughing. CaptainO'Brien of the Sarah W. Granger, a large, noisy old man with a stick--he wassitting listening to us in this arm-chair here-- he let drive suddenly with his stick atthe floor, and roars out, 'Skunks!' . . . Made us all jump. Vanlo's manager winks atus and asks, 'What's the matter, Captain O'Brien?' 'Matter! matter!' the old manbegan to shout; 'what are you Injuns laughing at? It's no laughing matter. It's adisgrace to human natur'--that's what it is. I would despise being seen in thesame room with one of those men. Yes, sir!' He seemed to catch my eye like,and I had to speak out of civility. 'Skunks!' says I, 'of course, Captain O'Brien,and I wouldn't care to have them here myself, so you're quite safe in this room,Captain O'Brien. Have a little something cool to drink.' 'Dam' your drink,Egstrom,' says he, with a twinkle in his eye; 'when I want a drink I will shout for it.I am going to quit. It stinks here now.' At this all the others burst out laughing, andout they go after the old man. And then, sir, that blasted Jim he puts down thesandwich he had in his hand and walks round the table to me; there was hisglass of beer poured out quite full. 'I am off,' he says--just like this. 'It isn't half-past one yet,' says I; 'you might snatch a smoke first.' I thought he meant it wastime for him to go down to his work. When I understood what he was up to, myarms fell--so! Can't get a man like that every day, you know, sir; a regular devilfor sailing a boat; ready to go out miles to sea to meet ships in any sort ofweather. More than once a captain would come in here full of it, and the firstthing he would say would be, 'That's a reckless sort of a lunatic you've got forwater-clerk, Egstrom. I was feeling my way in at daylight under short canvaswhen there comes flying out of the mist right under my forefoot a boat half underwater, sprays going over the mast-head, two frightened niggers on the bottomboards, a yelling fiend at the tiller. Hey! hey! Ship ahoy! ahoy! Captain! Hey! hey!Egstrom & Blake's man first to speak to you! Hey! hey! Egstrom & Blake! Hallo!hey! whoop! Kick the niggers--out reefs--a squall on at the time--shoots aheadwhooping and yelling to me to make sail and he would give me a lead in--morelike a demon than a man. Never saw a boat handled like that in all my life.Couldn't have been drunk--was he? Such a quiet, soft-spoken chap too--blushlike a girl when he came on board. . . .' I tell you, Captain Marlow, nobody had achance against us with a strange ship when Jim was out. The other ship-chandlers just kept their old customers, and . . ."

'Egstrom appeared overcome with emotion.

' "Why, sir--it seemed as though he wouldn't mind going a hundred miles out tosea in an old shoe to nab a ship for the firm. If the business had been his ownand all to make yet, he couldn't have done more in that way. And now . . . all atonce . . . like this! Thinks I to myself: 'Oho! a rise in the screw--that's the trouble--is it?' 'All right,' says I, 'no need of all that fuss with me, Jimmy. Just mention yourfigure. Anything in reason.' He looks at me as if he wanted to swallow somethingthat stuck in his throat. 'I can't stop with you.' 'What's that blooming joke?' I asks.He shakes his head, and I could see in his eye he was as good as gone already,sir. So I turned to him and slanged him till all was blue. 'What is it you're runningaway from?' I asks. 'Who has been getting at you? What scared you? Youhaven't as much sense as a rat; they don't clear out from a good ship. Where doyou expect to get a better berth?--you this and you that.' I made him look sick, Ican tell you. 'This business ain't going to sink,' says I. He gave a big jump. 'Good-bye,' he says, nodding at me like a lord; 'you ain't half a bad chap, Egstrom. Igive you my word that if you knew my reasons you wouldn't care to keep me.''That's the biggest lie you ever told in your life,' says I; 'I know my own mind.' Hemade me so mad that I had to laugh. 'Can't you really stop long enough to drinkthis glass of beer here, you funny beggar, you?' I don't know what came overhim; he didn't seem able to find the door; something comical, I can tell you,captain. I drank the beer myself. 'Well, if you're in such a hurry, here's luck to youin your own drink,' says I; 'only, you mark my words, if you keep up this gameyou'll very soon find that the earth ain't big enough to hold you--that's all.' Hegave me one black look, and out he rushed with a face fit to scare little children."

'Egstrom snorted bitterly, and combed one auburn whisker with knotty fingers."Haven't been able to get a man that was any good since. It's nothing but worry,worry, worry in business. And where might you have come across him, captain, ifit's fair to ask?"

' "He was the mate of the Patna that voyage," I said, feeling that I owed someexplanation. For a time Egstrom remained very still, with his fingers plunged inthe hair at the side of his face, and then exploded. "And who the devil caresabout that?" "I daresay no one," I began . . . "And what the devil is he--anyhow--for to go on like this?" He stuffed suddenly his left whisker into his mouth andstood amazed. "Jee!" he exclaimed, "I told him the earth wouldn't be big enoughto hold his caper." ' Chapter 19

'I have told you these two episodes at length to show his manner of dealing withhimself under the new conditions of his life. There were many others of the sort,more than I could count on the fingers of my two hands. They were all equallytinged by a high-minded absurdity of intention which made their futility profoundand touching. To fling away your daily bread so as to get your hands free for agrapple with a ghost may be an act of prosaic heroism. Men had done it before(though we who have lived know full well that it is not the haunted soul but thehungry body that makes an outcast), and men who had eaten and meant to eatevery day had applauded the creditable folly. He was indeed unfortunate, for allhis recklessness could not carry him out from under the shadow. There wasalways a doubt of his courage. The truth seems to be that it is impossible to laythe ghost of a fact. You can face it or shirk it--and I have come across a man ortwo who could wink at their familiar shades. Obviously Jim was not of the winkingsort; but what I could never make up my mind about was whether his line ofconduct amounted to shirking his ghost or to facing him out.

'I strained my mental eyesight only to discover that, as with the complexion of allour actions, the shade of difference was so delicate that it was impossible to say.It might have been flight and it might have been a mode of combat. To thecommon mind he became known as a rolling stone, because this was thefunniest part: he did after a time become perfectly known, and even notorious,within the circle of his wanderings (which had a diameter of, say, three thousandmiles), in the same way as an eccentric character is known to a wholecountryside. For instance, in Bankok, where he found employment with YuckerBrothers, charterers and teak merchants, it was almost pathetic to see him goabout in sunshine hugging his secret, which was known to the very up-countrylogs on the river. Schomberg, the keeper of the hotel where he boarded, ahirsute Alsatian of manly bearing and an irrepressible retailer of all thescandalous gossip of the place, would, with both elbows on the table, impart anadorned version of the story to any guest who cared to imbibe knowledge alongwith the more costly liquors. "And, mind you, the nicest fellow you could meet,"would be his generous conclusion; "quite superior." It says a lot for the casualcrowd that frequented Schomberg's establishment that Jim managed to hang outin Bankok for a whole six months. I remarked that people, perfect strangers, tookto him as one takes to a nice child. His manner was reserved, but it was asthough his personal appearance, his hair, his eyes, his smile, made friends forhim wherever he went. And, of course, he was no fool. I heard Siegmund Yucker(native of Switzerland), a gentle creature ravaged by a cruel dyspepsia, and sofrightfully lame that his head swung through a quarter of a circle at every step hetook, declare appreciatively that for one so young he was "of great gabasidy," asthough it had been a mere question of cubic contents. "Why not send him upcountry?" I suggested anxiously. (Yucker Brothers had concessions and teakforests in the interior.) "If he has capacity, as you say, he will soon get hold of thework. And physically he is very fit. His health is always excellent." "Ach! It's agreat ting in dis goundry to be vree vrom tispep-shia," sighed poor Yuckerenviously, casting a stealthy glance at the pit of his ruined stomach. I left himdrumming pensively on his desk and muttering, "Es ist ein' Idee. Es ist ein' Idee."Unfortunately, that very evening an unpleasant affair took place in the hotel.

'I don't know that I blame Jim very much, but it was a truly regrettable incident. Itbelonged to the lamentable species of bar-room scuffles, and the other party to itwas a cross-eyed Dane of sorts whose visiting-card recited, under hismisbegotten name: first lieutenant in the Royal Siamese Navy. The fellow, ofcourse, was utterly hopeless at billiards, but did not like to be beaten, I suppose.He had had enough to drink to turn nasty after the sixth game, and make somescornful remark at Jim's expense. Most of the people there didn't hear what wassaid, and those who had heard seemed to have had all precise recollectionscared out of them by the appalling nature of the consequences that immediatelyensued. It was very lucky for the Dane that he could swim, because the roomopened on a verandah and the Menam flowed below very wide and black. Aboat-load of Chinamen, bound, as likely as not, on some thieving expedition,fished out the officer of the King of Siam, and Jim turned up at about midnight onboard my ship without a hat. "Everybody in the room seemed to know," he said,gasping yet from the contest, as it were. He was rather sorry, on generalprinciples, for what had happened, though in this case there had been, he said,"no option." But what dismayed him was to find the nature of his burden as wellknown to everybody as though he had gone about all that time carrying it on hisshoulders. Naturally after this he couldn't remain in the place. He was universallycondemned for the brutal violence, so unbecoming a man in his delicate position;some maintained he had been disgracefully drunk at the time; others criticisedhis want of tact. Even Schomberg was very much annoyed. "He is a very niceyoung man," he said argumentatively to me, "but the lieutenant is a first-ratefellow too. He dines every night at my table d'hote, you know. And there's abilliard-cue broken. I can't allow that. First thing this morning I went over with myapologies to the lieutenant, and I think I've made it all right for myself; but onlythink, captain, if everybody started such games! Why, the man might have beendrowned! And here I can't run out into the next street and buy a new cue. I've gotto write to Europe for them. No, no! A temper like that won't do!" . . . He wasextremely sore on the subject.

'This was the worst incident of all in his--his retreat. Nobody could deplore it morethan myself; for if, as somebody said hearing him mentioned, "Oh yes! I know.He has knocked about a good deal out here," yet he had somehow avoidedbeing battered and chipped in the process. This last affair, however, made meseriously uneasy, because if his exquisite sensibilities were to go the length ofinvolving him in pot-house shindies, he would lose his name of an inoffensive, ifaggravating, fool, and acquire that of a common loafer. For all my confidence inhim I could not help reflecting that in such cases from the name to the thing itselfis but a step. I suppose you will understand that by that time I could not think ofwashing my hands of him. I took him away from Bankok in my ship, and we hada longish passage. It was pitiful to see how he shrank within himself. A seaman,even if a mere passenger, takes an interest in a ship, and looks at the sea-lifearound him with the critical enjoyment of a painter, for instance, looking atanother man's work. In every sense of the expression he is "on deck"; but myJim, for the most part, skulked down below as though he had been a stowaway.He infected me so that I avoided speaking on professional matters, such aswould suggest themselves naturally to two sailors during a passage. For wholedays we did not exchange a word; I felt extremely unwilling to give orders to myofficers in his presence. Often, when alone with him on deck or in the cabin, wedidn't know what to do with our eyes.

'I placed him with De Jongh, as you know, glad enough to dispose of him in anyway, yet persuaded that his position was now growing intolerable. He had lostsome of that elasticity which had enabled him to rebound back into hisuncompromising position after every overthrow. One day, coming ashore, I sawhim standing on the quay; the water of the roadstead and the sea in the offingmade one smooth ascending plane, and the outermost ships at anchor seemedto ride motionless in the sky. He was waiting for his boat, which was beingloaded at our feet with packages of small stores for some vessel ready to leave.After exchanging greetings, we remained silent--side by side. "Jove!" he saidsuddenly, "this is killing work."

'He smiled at me; I must say he generally could manage a smile. I made no reply.I knew very well he was not alluding to his duties; he had an easy time of it withDe Jongh. Nevertheless, as soon as he had spoken I became completelyconvinced that the work was killing. I did not even look at him. "Would you like,"said I, "to leave this part of the world altogether; try California or the West Coast?I'll see what I can do . . ." He interrupted me a little scornfully. "What differencewould it make?" . . . I felt at once convinced that he was right. It would make nodifference; it was not relief he wanted; I seemed to perceive dimly that what hewanted, what he was, as it were, waiting for, was something not easy to define--something in the nature of an opportunity. I had given him many opportunities,but they had been merely opportunities to earn his bread. Yet what more couldany man do? The position struck me as hopeless, and poor Brierly's sayingrecurred to me, "Let him creep twenty feet underground and stay there." Betterthat, I thought, than this waiting above ground for the impossible. Yet one couldnot be sure even of that. There and then, before his boat was three oars' lengthsaway from the quay, I had made up my mind to go and consult Stein in theevening.

'This Stein was a wealthy and respected merchant. His "house" (because it wasa house, Stein & Co., and there was some sort of partner who, as Stein said,"looked after the Moluccas") had a large inter-island business, with a lot oftrading posts established in the most out-of-the-way places for collecting theproduce. His wealth and his respectability were not exactly the reasons why Iwas anxious to seek his advice. I desired to confide my difficulty to him becausehe was one of the most trustworthy men I had ever known. The gentle light of asimple, unwearied, as it were, and intelligent good-nature illumined his longhairless face. It had deep downward folds, and was pale as of a man who hadalways led a sedentary life--which was indeed very far from being the case. Hishair was thin, and brushed back from a massive and lofty forehead. One fanciedthat at twenty he must have looked very much like what he was now atthreescore. It was a student's face; only the eyebrows nearly all white, thick andbushy, together with the resolute searching glance that came from under them,were not in accord with his, I may say, learned appearance. He was tall andloose-jointed; his slight stoop, together with an innocent smile, made him appearbenevolently ready to lend you his ear; his long arms with pale big hands hadrare deliberate gestures of a pointing out, demonstrating kind. I speak of him atlength, because under this exterior, and in conjunction with an upright andindulgent nature, this man possessed an intrepidity of spirit and a physicalcourage that could have been called reckless had it not been like a naturalfunction of the body-- say good digestion, for instance--completely unconsciousof itself. It is sometimes said of a man that he carries his life in his hand. Such asaying would have been inadequate if applied to him; during the early part of hisexistence in the East he had been playing ball with it. All this was in the past, butI knew the story of his life and the origin of his fortune. He was also a naturalist ofsome distinction, or perhaps I should say a learned collector. Entomology washis special study. His collection of Buprestidae and Longicorns--beetles all--horrible miniature monsters, looking malevolent in death and immobility, and hiscabinet of butterflies, beautiful and hovering under the glass of cases on lifelesswings, had spread his fame far over the earth. The name of this merchant,adventurer, sometime adviser of a Malay sultan (to whom he never alludedotherwise than as "my poor Mohammed Bonso"), had, on account of a fewbushels of dead insects, become known to learned persons in Europe, who couldhave had no conception, and certainly would not have cared to know anything, ofhis life or character. I, who knew, considered him an eminently suitable person toreceive my confidences about Jim's difficulties as well as my own.' Chapter 20

'Late in the evening I entered his study, after traversing an imposing but emptydining-room very dimly lit. The house was silent. I was preceded by an elderlygrim Javanese servant in a sort of livery of white jacket and yellow sarong, who,after throwing the door open, exclaimed low, "O master!" and stepping aside,vanished in a mysterious way as though he had been a ghost only momentarilyembodied for that particular service. Stein turned round with the chair, and in thesame movement his spectacles seemed to get pushed up on his forehead. Hewelcomed me in his quiet and humorous voice. Only one corner of the vast room,the corner in which stood his writing-desk, was strongly lighted by a shadedreading-lamp, and the rest of the spacious apartment melted into shapelessgloom like a cavern. Narrow shelves filled with dark boxes of uniform shape andcolour ran round the walls, not from floor to ceiling, but in a sombre belt aboutfour feet broad. Catacombs of beetles. Wooden tablets were hung above atirregular intervals. The light reached one of them, and the word Coleopterawritten in gold letters glittered mysteriously upon a vast dimness. The glasscases containing the collection of butterflies were ranged in three long rows uponslender-legged little tables. One of these cases had been removed from its placeand stood on the desk, which was bestrewn with oblong slips of paper blackenedwith minute handwriting.

' "So you see me--so," he said. His hand hovered over the case where a butterflyin solitary grandeur spread out dark bronze wings, seven inches or more across,with exquisite white veinings and a gorgeous border of yellow spots. "Only onespecimen like this they have in your London, and then--no more. To my smallnative town this my collection I shall bequeath. Something of me. The best."

'He bent forward in the chair and gazed intently, his chin over the front of thecase. I stood at his back. "Marvellous," he whispered, and seemed to forget mypresence. His history was curious. He had been born in Bavaria, and when ayouth of twenty-two had taken an active part in the revolutionary movement of1848. Heavily compromised, he managed to make his escape, and at first founda refuge with a poor republican watchmaker in Trieste. From there he made hisway to Tripoli with a stock of cheap watches to hawk about,--not a very greatopening truly, but it turned out lucky enough, because it was there he came upona Dutch traveller--a rather famous man, I believe, but I don't remember his name.It was that naturalist who, engaging him as a sort of assistant, took him to theEast. They travelled in the Archipelago together and separately, collectinginsects and birds, for four years or more. Then the naturalist went home, andStein, having no home to go to, remained with an old trader he had come acrossin his journeys in the interior of Celebes--if Celebes may be said to have aninterior. This old Scotsman, the only white man allowed to reside in the country atthe time, was a privileged friend of the chief ruler of Wajo States, who was awoman. I often heard Stein relate how that chap, who was slightly paralysed onone side, had introduced him to the native court a short time before anotherstroke carried him off. He was a heavy man with a patriarchal white beard, and ofimposing stature. He came into the council-hall where all the rajahs, pangerans,and headmen were assembled, with the queen, a fat wrinkled woman (very freein her speech, Stein said), reclining on a high couch under a canopy. He draggedhis leg, thumping with his stick, and grasped Stein's arm, leading him right up tothe couch. "Look, queen, and you rajahs, this is my son," he proclaimed in astentorian voice. "I have traded with your fathers, and when I die he shall tradewith you and your sons."

'By means of this simple formality Stein inherited the Scotsman's privilegedposition and all his stock-in-trade, together with a fortified house on the banks ofthe only navigable river in the country. Shortly afterwards the old queen, who wasso free in her speech, died, and the country became disturbed by variouspretenders to the throne. Stein joined the party of a younger son, the one ofwhom thirty years later he never spoke otherwise but as "my poor MohammedBonso." They both became the heroes of innumerable exploits; they hadwonderful adventures, and once stood a siege in the Scotsman's house for amonth, with only a score of followers against a whole army. I believe the nativestalk of that war to this day. Meantime, it seems, Stein never failed to annex on hisown account every butterfly or beetle he could lay hands on. After some eightyears of war, negotiations, false truces, sudden outbreaks, reconciliation,treachery, and so on, and just as peace seemed at last permanently established,his "poor Mohammed Bonso" was assassinated at the gate of his own royalresidence while dismounting in the highest spirits on his return from a successfuldeer-hunt. This event rendered Stein's position extremely insecure, but he wouldhave stayed perhaps had it not been that a short time afterwards he lostMohammed's sister ("my dear wife the princess," he used to say solemnly), bywhom he had had a daughter--mother and child both dying within three days ofeach other from some infectious fever. He left the country, which this cruel losshad made unbearable to him. Thus ended the first and adventurous part of hisexistence. What followed was so different that, but for the reality of sorrow whichremained with him, this strange part must have resembled a dream. He had alittle money; he started life afresh, and in the course of years acquired aconsiderable fortune. At first he had travelled a good deal amongst the islands,but age had stolen upon him, and of late he seldom left his spacious house threemiles out of town, with an extensive garden, and surrounded by stables, offices,and bamboo cottages for his servants and dependants, of whom he had many.He drove in his buggy every morning to town, where he had an office with whiteand Chinese clerks. He owned a small fleet of schooners and native craft, anddealt in island produce on a large scale. For the rest he lived solitary, but notmisanthropic, with his books and his collection, classing and arrangingspecimens, corresponding with entomologists in Europe, writing up a descriptivecatalogue of his treasures. Such was the history of the man whom I had come toconsult upon Jim's case without any definite hope. Simply to hear what he wouldhave to say would have been a relief. I was very anxious, but I respected theintense, almost passionate, absorption with which he looked at a butterfly, asthough on the bronze sheen of these frail wings, in the white tracings, in thegorgeous markings, he could see other things, an image of something asperishable and defying destruction as these delicate and lifeless tissuesdisplaying a splendour unmarred by death.

' "Marvellous!" he repeated, looking up at me. "Look! The beauty--but that is

nothing--look at the accuracy, the harmony. And so fragile! And so strong! Andso exact! This is Nature--the balance of colossal forces. Every star is so--andevery blade of grass stands so--and the mighty Kosmos il perfect equilibriumproduces--this. This wonder; this masterpiece of Nature--the great artist."

' "Never heard an entomologist go on like this," I observed cheerfully.

"Masterpiece! And what of man?"

' "Man is amazing, but he is not a masterpiece," he said, keeping his eyes fixedon the glass case. "Perhaps the artist was a little mad. Eh? What do you think?Sometimes it seems to me that man is come where he is not wanted, wherethere is no place for him; for if not, why should he want all the place? Why shouldhe run about here and there making a great noise about himself, talking aboutthe stars, disturbing the blades of grass? . . ."

' "Catching butterflies," I chimed in.

'He smiled, threw himself back in his chair, and stretched his legs. "Sit down," hesaid. "I captured this rare specimen myself one very fine morning. And I had avery big emotion. You don't know what it is for a collector to capture such a rarespecimen. You can't know."

'I smiled at my ease in a rocking-chair. His eyes seemed to look far beyond thewall at which they stared; and he narrated how, one night, a messenger arrivedfrom his "poor Mohammed," requiring his presence at the "residenz"--as hecalled it--which was distant some nine or ten miles by a bridle-path over acultivated plain, with patches of forest here and there. Early in the morning hestarted from his fortified house, after embracing his little Emma, and leaving the"princess," his wife, in command. He described how she came with him as far asthe gate, walking with one hand on the neck of his horse; she had on a whitejacket, gold pins in her hair, and a brown leather belt over her left shoulder with arevolver in it. "She talked as women will talk," he said, "telling me to be careful,and to try to get back before dark, and what a great wikedness it was for me togo alone. We were at war, and the country was not safe; my men were putting upbullet-proof shutters to the house and loading their rifles, and she begged me tohave no fear for her. She could defend the house against anybody till I returned.And I laughed with pleasure a little. I liked to see her so brave and young andstrong. I too was young then. At the gate she caught hold of my hand and gave itone squeeze and fell back. I made my horse stand still outside till I heard thebars of the gate put up behind me. There was a great enemy of mine, a greatnoble--and a great rascal too--roaming with a band in the neighbourhood. Icantered for four or five miles; there had been rain in the night, but the musts hadgone up, up--and the face of the earth was clean; it lay smiling to me, so freshand innocent--like a little child. Suddenly somebody fires a volley--twenty shots atleast it seemed to me. I hear bullets sing in my ear, and my hat jumps to the backof my head. It was a little intrigue, you understand. They got my poor Mohammedto send for me and then laid that ambush. I see it all in a minute, and I think--Thiswants a little management. My pony snort, jump, and stand, and I fall slowlyforward with my head on his mane. He begins to walk, and with one eye I couldsee over his neck a faint cloud of smoke hanging in front of a clump of bamboosto my left. I think--Aha! my friends, why you not wait long enough before youshoot? This is not yet gelungen. Oh no! I get hold of my revolver with my righthand--quiet--quiet. After all, there were only seven of these rascals. They get upfrom the grass and start running with their sarongs tucked up, waving spearsabove their heads, and yelling to each other to look out and catch the horse,because I was dead. I let them come as close as the door here, and then bang,bang, bang--take aim each time too. One more shot I fire at a man's back, but Imiss. Too far already. And then I sit alone on my horse with the clean earthsmiling at me, and there are the bodies of three men lying on the ground. Onewas curled up like a dog, another on his back had an arm over his eyes as if tokeep off the sun, and the third man he draws up his leg very slowly and makes itwith one kick straight again. I watch him very carefully from my horse, but there isno more--bleibt ganz ruhig--keep still, so. And as I looked at his face for somesign of life I observed something like a faint shadow pass over his forehead. Itwas the shadow of this butterfly. Look at the form of the wing. This species flyhigh with a strong flight. I raised my eyes and I saw him fluttering away. I think--Can it be possible? And then I lost him. I dismounted and went on very slow,leading my horse and holding my revolver with one hand and my eyes darting upand down and right and left, everywhere! At last I saw him sitting on a small heapof dirt ten feet away. At once my heart began to beat quick. I let go my horse,keep my revolver in one hand, and with the other snatch my soft felt hat off myhead. One step. Steady. Another step. Flop! I got him! When I got up I shook likea leaf with excitement, and when I opened these beautiful wings and made surewhat a rare and so extraordinary perfect specimen I had, my head went roundand my legs became so weak with emotion that I had to sit on the ground. I hadgreatly desired to possess myself of a specimen of that species when collectingfor the professor. I took long journeys and underwent great privations; I haddreamed of him in my sleep, and here suddenly I had him in my fingers--formyself! In the words of the poet" (he pronounced it "boet")--

" 'So halt' ich's endlich denn in meinen Handen,

Und nenn' es in gewissem Sinne mein.' "He gave to the last word the emphasis of a suddenly lowered voice, andwithdrew his eyes slowly from my face. He began to charge a long-stemmed pipebusily and in silence, then, pausing with his thumb on the orifice of the bowl,looked again at me significantly.

' "Yes, my good friend. On that day I had nothing to desire; I had greatly annoyedmy principal enemy; I was young, strong; I had friendship; I had the love" (he said"lof") "of woman, a child I had, to make my heart very full--and even what I hadonce dreamed in my sleep had come into my hand too!"

' "Friend, wife, child," he said slowly, gazing at the small flame-- "phoo!" Thematch was blown out. He sighed and turned again to the glass case. The frailand beautiful wings quivered faintly, as if his breath had for an instant called backto life that gorgeous object of his dreams.

' "The work," he began suddenly, pointing to the scattered slips, and in his usualgentle and cheery tone, "is making great progress. I have been this rarespecimen describing. . . . Na! And what is your good news?"

' "To tell you the truth, Stein," I said with an effort that surprised me, "I came hereto describe a specimen. . . ."

' "Butterfly?" he asked, with an unbelieving and humorous eagerness.

' "Ach so!" he murmured, and his smiling countenance, turned to me, becamegrave. Then after looking at me for a while he said slowly, "Well--I am a mantoo."

'Here you have him as he was; he knew how to be so generously encouraging as

to make a scrupulous man hesitate on the brink of confidence; but if I did hesitateit was not for long.

'He heard me out, sitting with crossed legs. Sometimes his head would disappearcompletely in a great eruption of smoke, and a sympathetic growl would comeout from the cloud. When I finished he uncrossed his legs, laid down his pipe,leaned forward towards me earnestly with his elbows on the arms of his chair,the tips of his fingers together.

' "I understand very well. He is romantic."

'He had diagnosed the case for me, and at first I was quite startled to find howsimple it was; and indeed our conference resembled so much a medicalconsultation--Stein, of learned aspect, sitting in an arm-chair before his desk; I,anxious, in another, facing him, but a little to one side--that it seemed natural toask--

' "What's good for it?"

'He lifted up a long forefinger.

' "There is only one remedy! One thing alone can us from being ourselves cure!"The finger came down on the desk with a smart rap. The case which he hadmade to look so simple before became if possible still simpler--and altogetherhopeless. There was a pause. "Yes," said I, "strictly speaking, the question is nothow to get cured, but how to live."

'He approved with his head, a little sadly as it seemed. "Ja! ja! In general,adapting the words of your great poet: That is the question. . . ." He went onnodding sympathetically. . . . "How to be! Ach! How to be."

'He stood up with the tips of his fingers resting on the desk.

' "We want in so many different ways to be," he began again. "This magnificentbutterfly finds a little heap of dirt and sits still on it; but man he will never on hisheap of mud keep still. He want to be so, and again he want to be so. . . ." Hemoved his hand up, then down. . . . "He wants to be a saint, and he wants to be adevil--and every time he shuts his eyes he sees himself as a very fine fellow--sofine as he can never be. . . . In a dream. . . ."

'He lowered the glass lid, the automatic lock clicked sharply, and taking up thecase in both hands he bore it religiously away to its place, passing out of thebright circle of the lamp into the ring of fainter light--into shapeless dusk at last. Ithad an odd effect--as if these few steps had carried him out of this concrete andperplexed world. His tall form, as though robbed of its substance, hoverednoiselessly over invisible things with stooping and indefinite movements; hisvoice, heard in that remoteness where he could be glimpsed mysteriously busywith immaterial cares, was no longer incisive, seemed to roll voluminous andgrave--mellowed by distance.

' "And because you not always can keep your eyes shut there comes the realtrouble--the heart pain--the world pain. I tell you, my friend, it is not good for youto find you cannot make your dream come true, for the reason that you not strongenough are, or not clever enough. .Ja! . . . And all the time you are such a finefellow too! Wie? Was? Gott im Himmel! How can that be? Ha! ha! ha!"

' "Yes! Very funny this terrible thing is. A man that is born falls into a dream like aman who falls into the sea. If he tries to climb out into the air as inexperiencedpeople endeavour to do, he drowns--nicht wahr? . . . No! I tell you! The way is tothe destructive element submit yourself, and with the exertions of your hands andfeet in the water make the deep, deep sea keep you up. So if you ask me--how tobe?"

'His voice leaped up extraordinarily strong, as though away there in the dusk hehad been inspired by some whisper of knowledge. "I will tell you! For that toothere is only one way."

'With a hasty swish-swish of his slippers he loomed up in the ring of faint light,and suddenly appeared in the bright circle of the lamp. His extended hand aimedat my breast like a pistol; his deepset eyes seemed to pierce through me, but histwitching lips uttered no word, and the austere exaltation of a certitude seen inthe dusk vanished from his face. The hand that had been pointing at my breastfell, and by-and-by, coming a step nearer, he laid it gently on my shoulder. Therewere things, he said mournfully, that perhaps could never be told, only he hadlived so much alone that sometimes he forgot--he forgot. The light had destroyedthe assurance which had inspired him in the distant shadows. He sat down and,with both elbows on the desk, rubbed his forehead. "And yet it is true--it is true. Inthe destructive element immerse." . . . He spoke in a subdued tone, withoutlooking at me, one hand on each side of his face. "That was the way. To followthe dream, and again to follow the dream--and so--ewig--usque ad finem. . . ."The whisper of his conviction seemed to open before me a vast and uncertainexpanse, as of a crepuscular horizon on a plain at dawn--or was it, perchance, atthe coming of the night? One had not the courage to decide; but it was acharming and deceptive light, throwing the impalpable poesy of its dimness overpitfalls--over graves. His life had begun in sacrifice, in enthusiasm for generousideas; he had travelled very far, on various ways, on strange paths, and whateverhe followed it had been without faltering, and therefore without shame andwithout regret. In so far he was right. That was the way, no doubt. Yet for all that,the great plain on which men wander amongst graves and pitfalls remained verydesolate under the impalpable poesy of its crepuscular light, overshadowed inthe centre, circled with a bright edge as if surrounded by an abyss full of flames.When at last I broke the silence it was to express the opinion that no one couldbe more romantic than himself.

'He shook his head slowly, and afterwards looked at me with a patient andinquiring glance. It was a shame, he said. There we were sitting and talking liketwo boys, instead of putting our heads together to find something practical--apractical remedy--for the evil--for the great evil--he repeated, with a humorousand indulgent smile. For all that, our talk did not grow more practical. We avoidedpronouncing Jim's name as though we had tried to keep flesh and blood out ofour discussion, or he were nothing but an erring spirit, a suffering and namelessshade. "Na!" said Stein, rising. "To-night you sleep here, and in the morning weshall do something practical-- practical. . . ." He lit a two-branched candlestickand led the way. We passed through empty dark rooms, escorted by gleamsfrom the lights Stein carried. They glided along the waxed floors, sweeping hereand there over the polished surface of a table, leaped upon a fragmentary curveof a piece of furniture, or flashed perpendicularly in and out of distant mirrors,while the forms of two men and the flicker of two flames could be seen for amoment stealing silently across the depths of a crystalline void. He walked slowlya pace in advance with stooping courtesy; there was a profound, as it were alistening, quietude on his face; the long flaxen locks mixed with white threadswere scattered thinly upon his slightly bowed neck.

' "He is romantic--romantic," he repeated. "And that is very bad--very bad. . . .

Very good, too," he added. "But is he?" I queried.

' "Gewiss," he said, and stood still holding up the candelabrum, but withoutlooking at me. "Evident! What is it that by inward pain makes him know himself?What is it that for you and me makes him--exist?"

'At that moment it was difficult to believe in Jim's existence-- starting from acountry parsonage, blurred by crowds of men as by clouds of dust, silenced bythe clashing claims of life and death in a material world--but his imperishablereality came to me with a convincing, with an irresistible force! I saw it vividly, asthough in our progress through the lofty silent rooms amongst fleeting gleams oflight and the sudden revelations of human figures stealing with flickering flameswithin unfathomable and pellucid depths, we had approached nearer to absoluteTruth, which, like Beauty itself, floats elusive, obscure, half submerged, in thesilent still waters of mystery. "Perhaps he is," I admitted with a slight laugh,whose unexpectedly loud reverberation made me lower my voice directly; "but Iam sure you are." With his head dropping on his breast and the light held high hebegan to walk again. "Well--I exist, too," he said.

'He preceded me. My eyes followed his movements, but what I did see was notthe head of the firm, the welcome guest at afternoon receptions, thecorrespondent of learned societies, the entertainer of stray naturalists; I saw onlythe reality of his destiny, which he had known how to follow with unfalteringfootsteps, that life begun in humble surroundings, rich in generous enthusiasms,in friendship, love, war--in all the exalted elements of romance. At the door of myroom he faced me. "Yes," I said, as though carrying on a discussion, "andamongst other things you dreamed foolishly of a certain butterfly; but when onefine morning your dream came in your way you did not let the splendidopportunity escape. Did you? Whereas he . . ." Stein lifted his hand. "And do youknow how many opportunities I let escape; how many dreams I had lost that hadcome in my way?" He shook his head regretfully. "It seems to me that somewould have been very fine--if I had made them come true. Do you know howmany? Perhaps I myself don't know." "Whether his were fine or not," I said, "heknows of one which he certainly did not catch." "Everybody knows of one or twolike that," said Stein; "and that is the trouble--the great trouble. . . ."

'He shook hands on the threshold, peered into my room under his raised arm."Sleep well. And to-morrow we must do something practical--practical. . . ."

'Though his own room was beyond mine I saw him return the way he came. Hewas going back to his butterflies.' Chapter 21

'I don't suppose any of you have ever heard of Patusan?' Marlow resumed, aftera silence occupied in the careful lighting of a cigar. 'It does not matter; there'smany a heavenly body in the lot crowding upon us of a night that mankind hadnever heard of, it being outside the sphere of its activities and of no earthlyimportance to anybody but to the astronomers who are paid to talk learnedlyabout its composition, weight, path--the irregularities of its conduct, theaberrations of its light--a sort of scientific scandal-mongering. Thus with Patusan.It was referred to knowingly in the inner government circles in Batavia, especiallyas to its irregularities and aberrations, and it was known by name to some few,very few, in the mercantile world. Nobody, however, had been there, and Isuspect no one desired to go there in person, just as an astronomer, I shouldfancy, would strongly object to being transported into a distant heavenly body,where, parted from his earthly emoluments, he would be bewildered by the viewof an unfamiliar heavens. However, neither heavenly bodies nor astronomershave anything to do with Patusan. It was Jim who went there. I only meant you tounderstand that had Stein arranged to send him into a star of the fifth magnitudethe change could not have been greater. He left his earthly failings behind himand what sort of reputation he had, and there was a totally new set of conditionsfor his imaginative faculty to work upon. Entirely new, entirely remarkable. Andhe got hold of them in a remarkable way.

'Stein was the man who knew more about Patusan than anybody else. More thanwas known in the government circles I suspect. I have no doubt he had beenthere, either in his butterfly-hunting days or later on, when he tried in hisincorrigible way to season with a pinch of romance the fattening dishes of hiscommercial kitchen. There were very few places in the Archipelago he had notseen in the original dusk of their being, before light (and even electric light) hadbeen carried into them for the sake of better morality and-- and--well--the greaterprofit, too. It was at breakfast of the morning following our talk about Jim that hementioned the place, after I had quoted poor Brierly's remark: "Let him creeptwenty feet underground and stay there." He looked up at me with interestedattention, as though I had been a rare insect. "This could be done, too," heremarked, sipping his coffee. "Bury him in some sort," I explained. "One doesn'tlike to do it of course, but it would be the best thing, seeing what he is." "Yes; heis young," Stein mused. "The youngest human being now in existence," Iaffirmed. "Schon. There's Patusan," he went on in the same tone. . . . "And thewoman is dead now," he added incomprehensibly.

'Of course I don't know that story; I can only guess that once before Patusan hadbeen used as a grave for some sin, transgression, or misfortune. It is impossibleto suspect Stein. The only woman that had ever existed for him was the Malaygirl he called "My wife the princess," or, more rarely, in moments of expansion,"the mother of my Emma." Who was the woman he had mentioned in connectionwith Patusan I can't say; but from his allusions I understand she had been aneducated and very good-looking Dutch-Malay girl, with a tragic or perhaps only apitiful history, whose most painful part no doubt was her marriage with a MalaccaPortuguese who had been clerk in some commercial house in the Dutchcolonies. I gathered from Stein that this man was an unsatisfactory person inmore ways than one, all being more or less indefinite and offensive. It was solelyfor his wife's sake that Stein had appointed him manager of Stein & Co.'s tradingpost in Patusan; but commercially the arrangement was not a success, at anyrate for the firm, and now the woman had died, Stein was disposed to try anotheragent there. The Portuguese, whose name was Cornelius, considered himself avery deserving but ill-used person, entitled by his abilities to a better position.This man Jim would have to relieve. "But I don't think he will go away from theplace," remarked Stein. "That has nothing to do with me. It was only for the sakeof the woman that I . . . But as I think there is a daughter left, I shall let him, if helikes to stay, keep the old house."

'Patusan is a remote district of a native-ruled state, and the chief settlement

bears the same name. At a point on the river about forty miles from the sea,where the first houses come into view, there can be seen rising above the levelof the forests the summits of two steep hills very close together, and separatedby what looks like a deep fissure, the cleavage of some mighty stroke. As amatter of fact, the valley between is nothing but a narrow ravine; the appearancefrom the settlement is of one irregularly conical hill split in two, and with the twohalves leaning slightly apart. On the third day after the full, the moon, as seenfrom the open space in front of Jim's house (he had a very fine house in thenative style when I visited him), rose exactly behind these hills, its diffused lightat first throwing the two masses into intensely black relief, and then the nearlyperfect disc, glowing ruddily, appeared, gliding upwards between the sides of thechasm, till it floated away above the summits, as if escaping from a yawninggrave in gentle triumph. "Wonderful effect," said Jim by my side. "Worth seeing.Is it not?"

'And this question was put with a note of personal pride that made me smile, asthough he had had a hand in regulating that unique spectacle. He had regulatedso many things in Patusan--things that would have appeared as much beyondhis control as the motions of the moon and the stars.

'It was inconceivable. That was the distinctive quality of the part into which Steinand I had tumbled him unwittingly, with no other notion than to get him out of theway; out of his own way, be it understood. That was our main purpose, though, Iown, I might have had another motive which had influenced me a little. I wasabout to go home for a time; and it may be I desired, more than I was aware ofmyself, to dispose of him--to dispose of him, you understand--before I left. I wasgoing home, and he had come to me from there, with his miserable trouble andhis shadowy claim, like a man panting under a burden in a mist. I cannot say Ihad ever seen him distinctly--not even to this day, after I had my last view of him;but it seemed to me that the less I understood the more I was bound to him in thename of that doubt which is the inseparable part of our knowledge. I did not knowso much more about myself. And then, I repeat, I was going home--to that homedistant enough for all its hearthstones to be like one hearthstone, by which thehumblest of us has the right to sit. We wander in our thousands over the face ofthe earth, the illustrious and the obscure, earning beyond the seas our fame, ourmoney, or only a crust of bread; but it seems to me that for each of us goinghome must be like going to render an account. We return to face our superiors,our kindred, our friends--those whom we obey, and those whom we love; buteven they who have neither, the most free, lonely, irresponsible and bereft ofties,--even those for whom home holds no dear face, no familiar voice,--eventhey have to meet the spirit that dwells within the land, under its sky, in its air, inits valleys, and on its rises, in its fields, in its waters and its trees--a mute friend,judge, and inspirer. Say what you like, to get its joy, to breathe its peace, to faceits truth, one must return with a clear conscience. All this may seem to you sheersentimentalism; and indeed very few of us have the will or the capacity to lookconsciously under the surface of familiar emotions. There are the girls we love,the men we look up to, the tenderness, the friendships, the opportunities, thepleasures! But the fact remains that you must touch your reward with cleanhands, lest it turn to dead leaves, to thorns, in your grasp. I think it is the lonely,without a fireside or an affection they may call their own, those who return not toa dwelling but to the land itself, to meet its disembodied, eternal, andunchangeable spirit--it is those who understand best its severity, its savingpower, the grace of its secular right to our fidelity, to our obedience. Yes! few ofus understand, but we all feel it though, and I say all without exception, becausethose who do not feel do not count. Each blade of grass has its spot on earthwhence it draws its life, its strength; and so is man rooted to the land from whichhe draws his faith together with his life. I don't know how much Jim understood;but I know he felt, he felt confusedly but powerfully, the demand of some suchtruth or some such illusion--I don't care how you call it, there is so little difference,and the difference means so little. The thing is that in virtue of his feeling hemattered. He would never go home now. Not he. Never. Had he been capable ofpicturesque manifestations he would have shuddered at the thought and madeyou shudder too. But he was not of that sort, though he was expressive enoughin his way. Before the idea of going home he would grow desperately stiff andimmovable, with lowered chin and pouted lips, and with those candid blue eyesof his glowering darkly under a frown, as if before something unbearable, as ifbefore something revolting. There was imagination in that hard skull of his, overwhich the thick clustering hair fitted like a cap. As to me, I have no imagination (Iwould be more certain about him today, if I had), and I do not mean to imply that Ifigured to myself the spirit of the land uprising above the white cliffs of Dover, toask me what I--returning with no bones broken, so to speak--had done with myvery young brother. I could not make such a mistake. I knew very well he was ofthose about whom there is no inquiry; I had seen better men go out, disappear,vanish utterly, without provoking a sound of curiosity or sorrow. The spirit of theland, as becomes the ruler of great enterprises, is careless of innumerable lives.Woe to the stragglers! We exist only in so far as we hang together. He hadstraggled in a way; he had not hung on; but he was aware of it with an intensitythat made him touching, just as a man's more intense life makes his death moretouching than the death of a tree. I happened to be handy, and I happened to betouched. That's all there is to it. I was concerned as to the way he would go out. Itwould have hurt me if, for instance, he had taken to drink. The earth is so smallthat I was afraid of, some day, being waylaid by a blear-eyed, swollen-faced,besmirched loafer, with no soles to his canvas shoes, and with a flutter of ragsabout the elbows, who, on the strength of old acquaintance, would ask for a loanof five dollars. You know the awful jaunty bearing of these scarecrows coming toyou from a decent past, the rasping careless voice, the half-averted impudentglances--those meetings more trying to a man who believes in the solidarity ofour lives than the sight of an impenitent death-bed to a priest. That, to tell you thetruth, was the only danger I could see for him and for me; but I also mistrustedmy want of imagination. It might even come to something worse, in some way itwas beyond my powers of fancy to foresee. He wouldn't let me forget howimaginative he was, and your imaginative people swing farther in any direction,as if given a longer scope of cable in the uneasy anchorage of life. They do. Theytake to drink too. It may be I was belittling him by such a fear. How could I tell?Even Stein could say no more than that he was romantic. I only knew he was oneof us. And what business had he to be romantic? I am telling you so much aboutmy own instinctive feelings and bemused reflections because there remains solittle to be told of him. He existed for me, and after all it is only through me that heexists for you. I've led him out by the hand; I have paraded him before you. Weremy commonplace fears unjust? I won't say--not even now. You may be able totell better, since the proverb has it that the onlookers see most of the game. Atany rate, they were superfluous. He did not go out, not at all; on the contrary, hecame on wonderfully, came on straight as a die and in excellent form, whichshowed that he could stay as well as spurt. I ought to be delighted, for it is avictory in which I had taken my part; but I am not so pleased as I would haveexpected to be. I ask myself whether his rush had really carried him out of thatmist in which he loomed interesting if not very big, with floating outlines--astraggler yearning inconsolably for his humble place in the ranks. And besides,the last word is not said,--probably shall never be said. Are not our lives too shortfor that full utterance which through all our stammerings is of course our only andabiding intention? I have given up expecting those last words, whose ring, if theycould only be pronounced, would shake both heaven and earth. There is nevertime to say our last word--the last word of our love, of our desire, faith, remorse,submissions, revolt. The heaven and the earth must not be shaken, I suppose--atleast, not by us who know so many truths about either. My last words about Jimshall be few. I affirm he had achieved greatness; but the thing would be dwarfedin the telling, or rather in the hearing. Frankly, it is not my words that I mistrustbut your minds. I could be eloquent were I not afraid you fellows had starved yourimaginations to feed your bodies. I do not mean to be offensive; it is respectableto have no illusions--and safe--and profitable--and dull. Yet you, too, in your timemust have known the intensity of life, that light of glamour created in the shock oftrifles, as amazing as the glow of sparks struck from a cold stone--and as short-lived, alas!' Chapter 22

'The conquest of love, honour, men's confidence--the pride of it, the power of it,are fit materials for a heroic tale; only our minds are struck by the externals ofsuch a success, and to Jim's successes there were no externals. Thirty miles offorest shut it off from the sight of an indifferent world, and the noise of the whitesurf along the coast overpowered the voice of fame. The stream of civilisation, asif divided on a headland a hundred miles north of Patusan, branches east andsouth-east, leaving its plains and valleys, its old trees and its old mankind,neglected and isolated, such as an insignificant and crumbling islet between thetwo branches of a mighty, devouring stream. You find the name of the countrypretty often in collections of old voyages. The seventeenth-century traders wentthere for pepper, because the passion for pepper seemed to burn like a flame oflove in the breast of Dutch and English adventurers about the time of James theFirst. Where wouldn't they go for pepper! For a bag of pepper they would cuteach other's throats without hesitation, and would forswear their souls, of whichthey were so careful otherwise: the bizarre obstinacy of that desire made themdefy death in a thousand shapes--the unknown seas, the loathsome and strangediseases; wounds, captivity, hunger, pestilence, and despair. It made them great!By heavens! it made them heroic; and it made them pathetic too in their cravingfor trade with the inflexible death levying its toll on young and old. It seemsimpossible to believe that mere greed could hold men to such a steadfastness ofpurpose, to such a blind persistence in endeavour and sacrifice. And indeedthose who adventured their persons and lives risked all they had for a slenderreward. They left their bones to lie bleaching on distant shores, so that wealthmight flow to the living at home. To us, their less tried successors, they appearmagnified, not as agents of trade but as instruments of a recorded destiny,pushing out into the unknown in obedience to an inward voice, to an impulsebeating in the blood, to a dream of the future. They were wonderful; and it mustbe owned they were ready for the wonderful. They recorded it complacently intheir sufferings, in the aspect of the seas, in the customs of strange nations, inthe glory of splendid rulers.

'In Patusan they had found lots of pepper, and had been impressed by themagnificence and the wisdom of the Sultan; but somehow, after a century ofchequered intercourse, the country seems to drop gradually out of the trade.Perhaps the pepper had given out. Be it as it may, nobody cares for it now; theglory has departed, the Sultan is an imbecile youth with two thumbs on his lefthand and an uncertain and beggarly revenue extorted from a miserablepopulation and stolen from him by his many uncles.

'This of course I have from Stein. He gave me their names and a short sketch ofthe life and character of each. He was as full of information about native statesas an official report, but infinitely more amusing. He had to know. He traded in somany, and in some districts--as in Patusan, for instance--his firm was the onlyone to have an agency by special permit from the Dutch authorities. TheGovernment trusted his discretion, and it was understood that he took all therisks. The men he employed understood that too, but he made it worth their whileapparently. He was perfectly frank with me over the breakfast-table in themorning. As far as he was aware (the last news was thirteen months old, hestated precisely), utter insecurity for life and property was the normal condition.There were in Patusan antagonistic forces, and one of them was Rajah Allang,the worst of the Sultan's uncles, the governor of the river, who did the extortingand the stealing, and ground down to the point of extinction the country-bornMalays, who, utterly defenceless, had not even the resource of emigrating--"Forindeed," as Stein remarked, "where could they go, and how could they getaway?" No doubt they did not even desire to get away. The world (which iscircumscribed by lofty impassable mountains) has been given into the hand ofthe high-born, and this Rajah they knew: he was of their own royal house. I hadthe pleasure of meeting the gentleman later on. He was a dirty, little, used-up oldman with evil eyes and a weak mouth, who swallowed an opium pill every twohours, and in defiance of common decency wore his hair uncovered and falling inwild stringy locks about his wizened grimy face. When giving audience he wouldclamber upon a sort of narrow stage erected in a hall like a ruinous barn with arotten bamboo floor, through the cracks of which you could see, twelve or fifteenfeet below, the heaps of refuse and garbage of all kinds lying under the house.That is where and how he received us when, accompanied by Jim, I paid him avisit of ceremony. There were about forty people in the room, and perhaps threetimes as many in the great courtyard below. There was constant movement,coming and going, pushing and murmuring, at our backs. A few youths in gaysilks glared from the distance; the majority, slaves and humble dependants, werehalf naked, in ragged sarongs, dirty with ashes and mud-stains. I had never seenJim look so grave, so self-possessed, in an impenetrable, impressive way. In themidst of these dark-faced men, his stalwart figure in white apparel, the gleamingclusters of his fair hair, seemed to catch all the sunshine that trickled through thecracks in the closed shutters of that dim hall, with its walls of mats and a roof ofthatch. He appeared like a creature not only of another kind but of anotheressence. Had they not seen him come up in a canoe they might have thought hehad descended upon them from the clouds. He did, however, come in a crazydug-out, sitting (very still and with his knees together, for fear of overturning thething)--sitting on a tin box--which I had lent him--nursing on his lap a revolver ofthe Navy pattern--presented by me on parting--which, through an interposition ofProvidence, or through some wrong-headed notion, that was just like him, or elsefrom sheer instinctive sagacity, he had decided to carry unloaded. That's how heascended the Patusan river. Nothing could have been more prosaic and moreunsafe, more extravagantly casual, more lonely. Strange, this fatality that wouldcast the complexion of a flight upon all his acts, of impulsive unreflectingdesertion of a jump into the unknown.'It is precisely the casualness of it that strikes me most. Neither Stein nor I had aclear conception of what might be on the other side when we, metaphoricallyspeaking, took him up and hove him over the wall with scant ceremony. At themoment I merely wished to achieve his disappearance; Stein characteristicallyenough had a sentimental motive. He had a notion of paying off (in kind, Isuppose) the old debt he had never forgotten. Indeed he had been all his lifeespecially friendly to anybody from the British Isles. His late benefactor, it is true,was a Scot--even to the length of being called Alexander McNeil--and Jim camefrom a long way south of the Tweed; but at the distance of six or seven thousandmiles Great Britain, though never diminished, looks foreshortened enough evento its own children to rob such details of their importance. Stein was excusable,and his hinted intentions were so generous that I begged him most earnestly tokeep them secret for a time. I felt that no consideration of personal advantageshould be allowed to influence Jim; that not even the risk of such influenceshould be run. We had to deal with another sort of reality. He wanted a refuge,and a refuge at the cost of danger should be offered him--nothing more.

'Upon every other point I was perfectly frank with him, and I even (as I believed atthe time) exaggerated the danger of the undertaking. As a matter of fact I did notdo it justice; his first day in Patusan was nearly his last--would have been his lastif he had not been so reckless or so hard on himself and had condescended toload that revolver. I remember, as I unfolded our precious scheme for his retreat,how his stubborn but weary resignation was gradually replaced by surprise,interest, wonder, and by boyish eagerness. This was a chance he had beendreaming of. He couldn't think how he merited that I . . . He would be shot if hecould see to what he owed . . .And it was Stein, Stein the merchant, who . . .butof course it was me he had to . . . I cut him short. He was not articulate, and hisgratitude caused me inexplicable pain. I told him that if he owed this chance toany one especially, it was to an old Scot of whom he had never heard, who haddied many years ago, of whom little was remembered besides a roaring voiceand a rough sort of honesty. There was really no one to receive his thanks. Steinwas passing on to a young man the help he had received in his own young days,and I had done no more than to mention his name. Upon this he coloured, and,twisting a bit of paper in his fingers, he remarked bashfully that I had alwaystrusted him.

'I admitted that such was the case, and added after a pause that I wished he hadbeen able to follow my example. "You think I don't?" he asked uneasily, andremarked in a mutter that one had to get some sort of show first; then brighteningup, and in a loud voice he protested he would give me no occasion to regret myconfidence, which--which . . .

' "Do not misapprehend," I interrupted. "It is not in your power to make me regretanything." There would be no regrets; but if there were, it would be altogether myown affair: on the other hand, I wished him to understand clearly that thisarrangement, this-- this--experiment, was his own doing; he was responsible for itand no one else. "Why? Why," he stammered, "this is the very thing that I . . ." Ibegged him not to be dense, and he looked more puzzled than ever. He was in afair way to make life intolerable to himself . . . "Do you think so?" he asked,disturbed; but in a moment added confidently, "I was going on though. Was Inot?" It was impossible to be angry with him: I could not help a smile, and toldhim that in the old days people who went on like this were on the way ofbecoming hermits in a wilderness. "Hermits be hanged!" he commented withengaging impulsiveness. Of course he didn't mind a wilderness. . . . "I was gladof it," I said. That was where he would be going to. He would find it lively enough,I ventured to promise. "Yes, yes," he said, keenly. He had shown a desire, Icontinued inflexibly, to go out and shut the door after him. . . . "Did I?" heinterrupted in a strange access of gloom that seemed to envelop him from headto foot like the shadow of a passing cloud. He was wonderfully expressive afterall. Wonderfully! "Did I?" he repeated bitterly. "You can't say I made much noiseabout it. And I can keep it up, too--only, confound it! you show me a door." . . ."Very well. Pass on," I struck in. I could make him a solemn promise that it wouldbe shut behind him with a vengeance. His fate, whatever it was, would beignored, because the country, for all its rotten state, was not judged ripe forinterference. Once he got in, it would be for the outside world as though he hadnever existed. He would have nothing but the soles of his two feet to stand upon,and he would have first to find his ground at that. "Never existed--that's it, byJove," he murmured to himself. His eyes, fastened upon my lips, sparkled. If hehad thoroughly understood the conditions, I concluded, he had better jump intothe first gharry he could see and drive on to Stein's house for his finalinstructions. He flung out of the room before I had fairly finished speaking.' Chapter 23

'He did not return till next morning. He had been kept to dinner and for the night.There never had been such a wonderful man as Mr. Stein. He had in his pocket aletter for Cornelius ("the Johnnie who's going to get the sack," he explained, witha momentary drop in his elation), and he exhibited with glee a silver ring, such asnatives use, worn down very thin and showing faint traces of chasing.

'This was his introduction to an old chap called Doramin--one of the principal menout there--a big pot--who had been Mr. Stein's friend in that country where hehad all these adventures. Mr. Stein called him "war-comrade." War-comrade wasgood. Wasn't it? And didn't Mr. Stein speak English wonderfully well? Said hehad learned it in Celebes--of all places! That was awfully funny. Was it not? Hedid speak with an accent--a twang--did I notice? That chap Doramin had givenhim the ring. They had exchanged presents when they parted for the last time.Sort of promising eternal friendship. He called it fine--did I not? They had to makea dash for dear life out of the country when that Mohammed--Mohammed--What's-his-name had been killed. I knew the story, of course. Seemed a beastlyshame, didn't it? . . .

'He ran on like this, forgetting his plate, with a knife and fork in hand (he hadfound me at tiffin), slightly flushed, and with his eyes darkened many shades,which was with him a sign of excitement. The ring was a sort of credential--("It'slike something you read of in books," he threw in appreciatively)--and Doraminwould do his best for him. Mr. Stein had been the means of saving that chap's lifeon some occasion; purely by accident, Mr. Stein had said, but he--Jim--had hisown opinion about that. Mr. Stein was just the man to look out for such accidents.No matter. Accident or purpose, this would serve his turn immensely. Hoped togoodness the jolly old beggar had not gone off the hooks meantime. Mr. Steincould not tell. There had been no news for more than a year; they were kickingup no end of an all-fired row amongst themselves, and the river was closed. Jollyawkward, this; but, no fear; he would manage to find a crack to get in.

'He impressed, almost frightened, me with his elated rattle. He was voluble like ayoungster on the eve of a long holiday with a prospect of delightful scrapes, andsuch an attitude of mind in a grown man and in this connection had in itsomething phenomenal, a little mad, dangerous, unsafe. I was on the point ofentreating him to take things seriously when he dropped his knife and fork (hehad begun eating, or rather swallowing food, as it were, unconsciously), andbegan a search all round his plate. The ring! The ring! Where the devil . . . Ah!Here it was . . . He closed his big hand on it, and tried all his pockets one afteranother. Jove! wouldn't do to lose the thing. He meditated gravely over his fist.Had it? Would hang the bally affair round his neck! And he proceeded to do thisimmediately, producing a string (which looked like a bit of a cotton shoe-lace) forthe purpose. There! That would do the trick! It would be the deuce if . . . Heseemed to catch sight of my face for the first time, and it steadied him a little. Iprobably didn't realise, he said with a naive gravity, how much importance heattached to that token. It meant a friend; and it is a good thing to have a friend.He knew something about that. He nodded at me expressively, but before mydisclaiming gesture he leaned his head on his hand and for a while sat silent,playing thoughtfully with the bread-crumbs on the cloth . . . "Slam the door--thatwas jolly well put," he cried, and jumping up, began to pace the room, remindingme by the set of the shoulders, the turn of his head, the headlong and unevenstride, of that night when he had paced thus, confessing, explaining--what youwill--but, in the last instance, living--living before me, under his own little cloud,with all his unconscious subtlety which could draw consolation from the verysource of sorrow. It was the same mood, the same and different, like a ficklecompanion that to-day guiding you on the true path, with the same eyes, thesame step, the same impulse, to-morrow will lead you hopelessly astray. Histread was assured, his straying, darkened eyes seemed to search the room forsomething. One of his footfalls somehow sounded louder than the other--the faultof his boots probably--and gave a curious impression of an invisible halt in hisgait. One of his hands was rammed deep into his trousers' pocket, the otherwaved suddenly above his head. "Slam the door!" he shouted. "I've been waitingfor that. I'll show yet . . . I'll . . . I'm ready for any confounded thing . . . I've beendreaming of it . . . Jove! Get out of this. Jove! This is luck at last . . . You wait. I'll .. ."

'He tossed his head fearlessly, and I confess that for the first and last time in ouracquaintance I perceived myself unexpectedly to be thoroughly sick of him. Whythese vapourings? He was stumping about the room flourishing his arm absurdly,and now and then feeling on his breast for the ring under his clothes. Where wasthe sense of such exaltation in a man appointed to be a trading-clerk, and in aplace where there was no trade--at that? Why hurl defiance at the universe? Thiswas not a proper frame of mind to approach any undertaking; an improper frameof mind not only for him, I said, but for any man. He stood still over me. Did Ithink so? he asked, by no means subdued, and with a smile in which I seemed todetect suddenly something insolent. But then I am twenty years his senior. Youthis insolent; it is its right--its necessity; it has got to assert itself, and all assertionin this world of doubts is a defiance, is an insolence. He went off into a far corner,and coming back, he, figuratively speaking, turned to rend me. I spoke like thatbecause I--even I, who had been no end kind to him--even I remembered--remembered--against him--what--what had happened. And what about others--the--the--world? Where's the wonder he wanted to get out, meant to get out,meant to stay out--by heavens! And I talked about proper frames of mind!

' "It is not I or the world who remember," I shouted. "It is you--you, whoremember."'He did not flinch, and went on with heat, "Forget everything, everybody,everybody." . . . His voice fell. . . "But you," he added.

' "Yes--me too--if it would help," I said, also in a low tone. After this we remainedsilent and languid for a time as if exhausted. Then he began again, composedly,and told me that Mr. Stein had instructed him to wait for a month or so, to seewhether it was possible for him to remain, before he began building a new housefor himself, so as to avoid "vain expense." He did make use of funnyexpressions--Stein did. "Vain expense" was good. . . . Remain? Why! of course.He would hang on. Let him only get in--that's all; he would answer for it he wouldremain. Never get out. It was easy enough to remain.

' "Don't be foolhardy," I said, rendered uneasy by his threatening tone. "If youonly live long enough you will want to come back."

' "Come back to what?" he asked absently, with his eyes fixed upon the face of aclock on the wall.

'I was silent for a while. "Is it to be never, then?" I said. "Never," he repeateddreamily without looking at me, and then flew into sudden activity. "Jove! Twoo'clock, and I sail at four!"

'It was true. A brigantine of Stein's was leaving for the westward that afternoon,and he had been instructed to take his passage in her, only no orders to delaythe sailing had been given. I suppose Stein forgot. He made a rush to get histhings while I went aboard my ship, where he promised to call on his way to theouter roadstead. He turned up accordingly in a great hurry and with a smallleather valise in his hand. This wouldn't do, and I offered him an old tin trunk ofmine supposed to be water-tight, or at least damp-tight. He effected the transferby the simple process of shooting out the contents of his valise as you wouldempty a sack of wheat. I saw three books in the tumble; two small, in darkcovers, and a thick green-and-gold volume--a half-crown complete Shakespeare."You read this?" I asked. "Yes. Best thing to cheer up a fellow," he said hastily. Iwas struck by this appreciation, but there was no time for Shakespearian talk. Aheavy revolver and two small boxes of cartridges were lying on the cuddy-table."Pray take this," I said. "It may help you to remain." No sooner were these wordsout of my mouth than I perceived what grim meaning they could bear. "May helpyou to get in," I corrected myself remorsefully. He however was not troubled byobscure meanings; he thanked me effusively and bolted out, calling Good-byeover his shoulder. I heard his voice through the ship's side urging his boatmen togive way, and looking out of the stern-port I saw the boat rounding under thecounter. He sat in her leaning forward, exciting his men with voice and gestures;and as he had kept the revolver in his hand and seemed to be presenting it attheir heads, I shall never forget the scared faces of the four Javanese, and thefrantic swing of their stroke which snatched that vision from under my eyes. Thenturning away, the first thing I saw were the two boxes of cartridges on the cuddy-table. He had forgotten to take them.

'I ordered my gig manned at once; but Jim's rowers, under the impression thattheir lives hung on a thread while they had that madman in the boat, made suchexcellent time that before I had traversed half the distance between the twovessels I caught sight of him clambering over the rail, and of his box beingpassed up. All the brigantine's canvas was loose, her mainsail was set, and thewindlass was just beginning to clink as I stepped upon her deck: her master, adapper little half-caste of forty or so, in a blue flannel suit, with lively eyes, hisround face the colour of lemon-peel, and with a thin little black moustachedrooping on each side of his thick, dark lips, came forward smirking. He turnedout, notwithstanding his self-satisfied and cheery exterior, to be of a careworntemperament. In answer to a remark of mine (while Jim had gone below for amoment) he said, "Oh yes. Patusan." He was going to carry the gentleman to themouth of the river, but would "never ascend." His flowing English seemed to bederived from a dictionary compiled by a lunatic. Had Mr. Stein desired him to"ascend," he would have "reverentially"--(I think he wanted to say respectfully--but devil only knows)--"reverentially made objects for the safety of properties." Ifdisregarded, he would have presented "resignation to quit." Twelve months agohe had made his last voyage there, and though Mr. Cornelius "propitiated manyoffertories" to Mr. Rajah Allang and the "principal populations," on conditionswhich made the trade "a snare and ashes in the mouth," yet his ship had beenfired upon from the woods by "irresponsive parties" all the way down the river;which causing his crew "from exposure to limb to remain silent in hidings," thebrigantine was nearly stranded on a sandbank at the bar, where she "would havebeen perishable beyond the act of man." The angry disgust at the recollection,the pride of his fluency, to which he turned an attentive ear, struggled for thepossession of his broad simple face. He scowled and beamed at me, andwatched with satisfaction the undeniable effect of his phraseology. Dark frownsran swiftly over the placid sea, and the brigantine, with her fore-topsail to themast and her main-boom amidships, seemed bewildered amongst the cat's-paws. He told me further, gnashing his teeth, that the Rajah was a "laughablehyaena" (can't imagine how he got hold of hyaenas); while somebody else wasmany times falser than the "weapons of a crocodile." Keeping one eye on themovements of his crew forward, he let loose his volubility--comparing the place toa "cage of beasts made ravenous by long impenitence." I fancy he meantimpunity. He had no intention, he cried, to "exhibit himself to be made attachedpurposefully to robbery." The long-drawn wails, giving the time for the pull of themen catting the anchor, came to an end, and he lowered his voice. "Plenty toomuch enough of Patusan," he concluded, with energy.

'I heard afterwards he had been so indiscreet as to get himself tied up by theneck with a rattan halter to a post planted in the middle of a mud-hole before theRajah's house. He spent the best part of a day and a whole night in thatunwholesome situation, but there is every reason to believe the thing had beenmeant as a sort of joke. He brooded for a while over that horrid memory, Isuppose, and then addressed in a quarrelsome tone the man coming aft to thehelm. When he turned to me again it was to speak judicially, without passion. Hewould take the gentleman to the mouth of the river at Batu Kring (Patusan town"being situated internally," he remarked, "thirty miles"). But in his eyes, hecontinued--a tone of bored, weary conviction replacing his previous volubledelivery-- the gentleman was already "in the similitude of a corpse." "What? Whatdo you say?" I asked. He assumed a startlingly ferocious demeanour, andimitated to perfection the act of stabbing from behind. "Already like the body ofone deported," he explained, with the insufferably conceited air of his kind afterwhat they imagine a display of cleverness. Behind him I perceived Jim smilingsilently at me, and with a raised hand checking the exclamation on my lips.

'Then, while the half-caste, bursting with importance, shouted his orders, whilethe yards swung creaking and the heavy boom came surging over, Jim and I,alone as it were, to leeward of the mainsail, clasped each other's hands andexchanged the last hurried words. My heart was freed from that dull resentmentwhich had existed side by side with interest in his fate. The absurd chatter of thehalf-caste had given more reality to the miserable dangers of his path thanStein's careful statements. On that occasion the sort of formality that had beenalways present in our intercourse vanished from our speech; I believe I calledhim "dear boy," and he tacked on the words "old man" to some half-utteredexpression of gratitude, as though his risk set off against my years had made usmore equal in age and in feeling. There was a moment of real and profoundintimacy, unexpected and short-lived like a glimpse of some everlasting, of somesaving truth. He exerted himself to soothe me as though he had been the moremature of the two. "All right, all right," he said, rapidly, and with feeling. "I promiseto take care of myself. Yes; I won't take any risks. Not a single blessed risk. Ofcourse not. I mean to hang out. Don't you worry. Jove! I feel as if nothing couldtouch me. Why! this is luck from the word Go. I wouldn't spoil such a magnificentchance!" . . . A magnificent chance! Well, it was magnificent, but chances arewhat men make them, and how was I to know? As he had said, even I--even Iremembered--his--his misfortune against him. It was true. And the best thing forhim was to go.

'My gig had dropped in the wake of the brigantine, and I saw him aft detachedupon the light of the westering sun, raising his cap high above his head. I heardan indistinct shout, "You--shall-- hear--of--me." Of me, or from me, I don't knowwhich. I think it must have been of me. My eyes were too dazzled by the glitter ofthe sea below his feet to see him clearly; I am fated never to see him clearly; butI can assure you no man could have appeared less "in the similitude of acorpse," as that half-caste croaker had put it. I could see the little wretch's face,the shape and colour of a ripe pumpkin, poked out somewhere under Jim'selbow. He, too, raised his arm as if for a downward thrust. Absit omen!' Chapter 24

'The coast of Patusan (I saw it nearly two years afterwards) is straight andsombre, and faces a misty ocean. Red trails are seen like cataracts of ruststreaming under the dark-green foliage of bushes and creepers clothing the lowcliffs. Swampy plains open out at the mouth of rivers, with a view of jagged bluepeaks beyond the vast forests. In the offing a chain of islands, dark, crumblingshapes, stand out in the everlasting sunlit haze like the remnants of a wallbreached by the sea.

'There is a village of fisher-folk at the mouth of the Batu Kring branch of theestuary. The river, which had been closed so long, was open then, and Stein'slittle schooner, in which I had my passage, worked her way up in three tideswithout being exposed to a fusillade from "irresponsive parties." Such a state ofaffairs belonged already to ancient history, if I could believe the elderly headmanof the fishing village, who came on board to act as a sort of pilot. He talked to me(the second white man he had ever seen) with confidence, and most of his talkwas about the first white man he had ever seen. He called him Tuan Jim, and thetone of his references was made remarkable by a strange mixture of familiarityand awe. They, in the village, were under that lord's special protection, whichshowed that Jim bore no grudge. If he had warned me that I would hear of him itwas perfectly true. I was hearing of him. There was already a story that the tidehad turned two hours before its time to help him on his journey up the river. Thetalkative old man himself had steered the canoe and had marvelled at thephenomenon. Moreover, all the glory was in his family. His son and his son-in-law had paddled; but they were only youths without experience, who did notnotice the speed of the canoe till he pointed out to them the amazing fact.

'Jim's coming to that fishing village was a blessing; but to them, as to many of us,the blessing came heralded by terrors. So many generations had been releasedsince the last white man had visited the river that the very tradition had been lost.The appearance of the being that descended upon them and demanded inflexiblyto be taken up to Patusan was discomposing; his insistence was alarming; hisgenerosity more than suspicious. It was an unheard-of request. There was noprecedent. What would the Rajah say to this? What would he do to them? Thebest part of the night was spent in consultation; but the immediate risk from theanger of that strange man seemed so great that at last a cranky dug-out was gotready. The women shrieked with grief as it put off. A fearless old hag cursed thestranger.

'He sat in it, as I've told you, on his tin box, nursing the unloaded revolver on hislap. He sat with precaution--than which there is nothing more fatiguing--and thusentered the land he was destined to fill with the fame of his virtues, from the bluepeaks inland to the white ribbon of surf on the coast. At the first bend he lostsight of the sea with its labouring waves for ever rising, sinking, and vanishing torise again--the very image of struggling mankind--and faced the immovableforests rooted deep in the soil, soaring towards the sunshine, everlasting in theshadowy might of their tradition, like life itself. And his opportunity sat veiled byhis side like an Eastern bride waiting to be uncovered by the hand of the master.He too was the heir of a shadowy and mighty tradition! He told me, however, thathe had never in his life felt so depressed and tired as in that canoe. All themovement he dared to allow himself was to reach, as it were by stealth, after theshell of half a cocoa-nut floating between his shoes, and bale some of the waterout with a carefully restrained action. He discovered how hard the lid of a block-tin case was to sit upon. He had heroic health; but several times during thatjourney he experienced fits of giddiness, and between whiles he speculatedhazily as to the size of the blister the sun was raising on his back. Foramusement he tried by looking ahead to decide whether the muddy object hesaw lying on the water's edge was a log of wood or an alligator. Only very soonhe had to give that up. No fun in it. Always alligator. One of them flopped into theriver and all but capsized the canoe. But this excitement was over directly. Thenin a long empty reach he was very grateful to a troop of monkeys who came rightdown on the bank and made an insulting hullabaloo on his passage. Such wasthe way in which he was approaching greatness as genuine as any man everachieved. Principally, he longed for sunset; and meantime his three paddlerswere preparing to put into execution their plan of delivering him up to the Rajah.

' "I suppose I must have been stupid with fatigue, or perhaps I did doze off for atime," he said. The first thing he knew was his canoe coming to the bank. Hebecame instantaneously aware of the forest having been left behind, of the firsthouses being visible higher up, of a stockade on his left, and of his boatmenleaping out together upon a low point of land and taking to their heels.Instinctively he leaped out after them. At first he thought himself deserted forsome inconceivable reason, but he heard excited shouts, a gate swung open,and a lot of people poured out, making towards him. At the same time a boat fullof armed men appeared on the river and came alongside his empty canoe, thusshutting off his retreat.

' "I was too startled to be quite cool--don't you know? and if that revolver hadbeen loaded I would have shot somebody--perhaps two, three bodies, and thatwould have been the end of me. But it wasn't. . . ." "Why not?" I asked. "Well, Icouldn't fight the whole population, and I wasn't coming to them as if I were afraidof my life," he said, with just a faint hint of his stubborn sulkiness in the glance hegave me. I refrained from pointing out to him that they could not have known thechambers were actually empty. He had to satisfy himself in his own way. . . ."Anyhow it wasn't," he repeated good-humouredly, "and so I just stood still andasked them what was the matter. That seemed to strike them dumb. I saw someof these thieves going off with my box. That long-legged old scoundrel Kassim(I'll show him to you to-morrow) ran out fussing to me about the Rajah wanting tosee me. I said, 'All right.' I too wanted to see the Rajah, and I simply walked inthrough the gate and--and--here I am." He laughed, and then with unexpectedemphasis, "And do you know what's the best in it?" he asked. "I'll tell you. It's theknowledge that had I been wiped out it is this place that would have been theloser."

'He spoke thus to me before his house on that evening I've mentioned-- after wehad watched the moon float away above the chasm between the hills like anascending spirit out of a grave; its sheen descended, cold and pale, like theghost of dead sunlight. There is something haunting in the light of the moon; ithas all the dispassionateness of a disembodied soul, and something of itsinconceivable mystery. It is to our sunshine, which--say what you like--is all wehave to live by, what the echo is to the sound: misleading and confusing whetherthe note be mocking or sad. It robs all forms of matter--which, after all, is ourdomain--of their substance, and gives a sinister reality to shadows alone. And theshadows were very real around us, but Jim by my side looked very stalwart, asthough nothing--not even the occult power of moonlight--could rob him of hisreality in my eyes. Perhaps, indeed, nothing could touch him since he hadsurvived the assault of the dark powers. All was silent, all was still; even on theriver the moonbeams slept as on a pool. It was the moment of high water, amoment of immobility that accentuated the utter isolation of this lost corner of theearth. The houses crowding along the wide shining sweep without ripple orglitter, stepping into the water in a line of jostling, vague, grey, silvery formsmingled with black masses of shadow, were like a spectral herd of shapelesscreatures pressing forward to drink in a spectral and lifeless stream. Here andthere a red gleam twinkled within the bamboo walls, warm, like a living spark,significant of human affections, of shelter, of repose.

'He confessed to me that he often watched these tiny warm gleams go out oneby one, that he loved to see people go to sleep under his eyes, confident in thesecurity of to-morrow. "Peaceful here, eh?" he asked. He was not eloquent, butthere was a deep meaning in the words that followed. "Look at these houses;there's not one where I am not trusted. Jove! I told you I would hang on. Ask anyman, woman, or child . . ." He paused. "Well, I am all right anyhow."

'I observed quickly that he had found that out in the end. I had been sure of it, Iadded. He shook his head. "Were you?" He pressed my arm lightly above theelbow. "Well, then--you were right."

'There was elation and pride, there was awe almost, in that low exclamation."Jove!" he cried, "only think what it is to me." Again he pressed my arm. "And youasked me whether I thought of leaving. Good God! I! want to leave! Especiallynow after what you told me of Mr. Stein's . . . Leave! Why! That's what I wasafraid of. It would have been--it would have been harder than dying. No--on myword. Don't laugh. I must feel--every day, every time I open my eyes--that I amtrusted--that nobody has a right--don't you know? Leave! For where? What for?To get what?"'I had told him (indeed it was the main object of my visit) that it was Stein'sintention to present him at once with the house and the stock of trading goods,on certain easy conditions which would make the transaction perfectly regularand valid. He began to snort and plunge at first. "Confound your delicacy!" Ishouted. "It isn't Stein at all. It's giving you what you had made for yourself. Andin any case keep your remarks for McNeil--when you meet him in the other world.I hope it won't happen soon. . . ." He had to give in to my arguments, because allhis conquests, the trust, the fame, the friendships, the love--all these things thatmade him master had made him a captive, too. He looked with an owner's eye atthe peace of the evening, at the river, at the houses, at the everlasting life of theforests, at the life of the old mankind, at the secrets of the land, at the pride of hisown heart; but it was they that possessed him and made him their own to theinnermost thought, to the slightest stir of blood, to his last breath.

'It was something to be proud of. I, too, was proud--for him, if not so certain of thefabulous value of the bargain. It was wonderful. It was not so much of hisfearlessness that I thought. It is strange how little account I took of it: as if it hadbeen something too conventional to be at the root of the matter. No. I was morestruck by the other gifts he had displayed. He had proved his grasp of theunfamiliar situation, his intellectual alertness in that field of thought. There washis readiness, too! Amazing. And all this had come to him in a manner like keenscent to a well-bred hound. He was not eloquent, but there was a dignity in thisconstitutional reticence, there was a high seriousness in his stammerings. Hehad still his old trick of stubborn blushing. Now and then, though, a word, asentence, would escape him that showed how deeply, how solemnly, he feltabout that work which had given him the certitude of rehabilitation. That is whyhe seemed to love the land and the people with a sort of fierce egoism, with acontemptuous tenderness.' Chapter 25

' "This is where I was prisoner for three days," he murmured to me (it was on theoccasion of our visit to the Rajah), while we were making our way slowly througha kind of awestruck riot of dependants across Tunku Allang's courtyard. "Filthyplace, isn't it? And I couldn't get anything to eat either, unless I made a row aboutit, and then it was only a small plate of rice and a fried fish not much bigger thana stickleback--confound them! Jove! I've been hungry prowling inside this stinkingenclosure with some of these vagabonds shoving their mugs right under mynose. I had given up that famous revolver of yours at the first demand. Glad toget rid of the bally thing. Look like a fool walking about with an empty shooting-iron in my hand." At that moment we came into the presence, and he becameunflinchingly grave and complimentary with his late captor. Oh! magnificent! Iwant to laugh when I think of it. But I was impressed, too. The old disreputableTunku Allang could not help showing his fear (he was no hero, for all the tales ofhis hot youth he was fond of telling); and at the same time there was a wistfulconfidence in his manner towards his late prisoner. Note! Even where he wouldbe most hated he was still trusted. Jim--as far as I could follow the conversation--was improving the occasion by the delivery of a lecture. Some poor villagers hadbeen waylaid and robbed while on their way to Doramin's house with a fewpieces of gum or beeswax which they wished to exchange for rice. "It wasDoramin who was a thief," burst out the Rajah. A shaking fury seemed to enterthat old frail body. He writhed weirdly on his mat, gesticulating with his hands andfeet, tossing the tangled strings of his mop--an impotent incarnation of rage.There were staring eyes and dropping jaws all around us. Jim began to speak.Resolutely, coolly, and for some time he enlarged upon the text that no manshould be prevented from getting his food and his children's food honestly. Theother sat like a tailor at his board, one palm on each knee, his head low, andfixing Jim through the grey hair that fell over his very eyes. When Jim had donethere was a great stillness. Nobody seemed to breathe even; no one made asound till the old Rajah sighed faintly, and looking up, with a toss of his head,said quickly, "You hear, my people! No more of these little games." This decreewas received in profound silence. A rather heavy man, evidently in a position ofconfidence, with intelligent eyes, a bony, broad, very dark face, and a cheerily ofofficious manner (I learned later on he was the executioner), presented to us twocups of coffee on a brass tray, which he took from the hands of an inferiorattendant. "You needn't drink," muttered Jim very rapidly. I didn't perceive themeaning at first, and only looked at him. He took a good sip and sat composedly,holding the saucer in his left hand. In a moment I felt excessively annoyed. "Whythe devil," I whispered, smiling at him amiably, "do you expose me to such astupid risk?" I drank, of course, there was nothing for it, while he gave no sign,and almost immediately afterwards we took our leave. While we were goingdown the courtyard to our boat, escorted by the intelligent and cheeryexecutioner, Jim said he was very sorry. It was the barest chance, of course.Personally he thought nothing of poison. The remotest chance. He was--heassured me--considered to be infinitely more useful than dangerous, and so . . ."But the Rajah is afraid of you abominably. Anybody can see that," I argued with,I own, a certain peevishness, and all the time watching anxiously for the first twistof some sort of ghastly colic. I was awfully disgusted. "If I am to do any good hereand preserve my position," he said, taking his seat by my side in the boat, "I muststand the risk: I take it once every month, at least. Many people trust me to dothat--for them. Afraid of me! That's just it. Most likely he is afraid of me because Iam not afraid of his coffee." Then showing me a place on the north front of thestockade where the pointed tops of several stakes were broken, "This is where Ileaped over on my third day in Patusan. They haven't put new stakes there yet.Good leap, eh?" A moment later we passed the mouth of a muddy creek. "This ismy second leap. I had a bit of a run and took this one flying, but fell short.Thought I would leave my skin there. Lost my shoes struggling. And all the time Iwas thinking to myself how beastly it would be to get a jab with a bally long spearwhile sticking in the mud like this. I remember how sick I felt wriggling in thatslime. I mean really sick--as if I had bitten something rotten."

'That's how it was--and the opportunity ran by his side, leaped over the gap,floundered in the mud . . . still veiled. The unexpectedness of his coming was theonly thing, you understand, that saved him from being at once dispatched withkrisses and flung into the river. They had him, but it was like getting hold of anapparition, a wraith, a portent. What did it mean? What to do with it? Was it toolate to conciliate him? Hadn't he better be killed without more delay? But whatwould happen then? Wretched old Allang went nearly mad with apprehensionand through the difficulty of making up his mind. Several times the council wasbroken up, and the advisers made a break helter-skelter for the door and out onto the verandah. One--it is said--even jumped down to the ground--fifteen feet, Ishould judge--and broke his leg. The royal governor of Patusan had bizarremannerisms, and one of them was to introduce boastful rhapsodies into everyarduous discussion, when, getting gradually excited, he would end by flying offhis perch with a kriss in his hand. But, barring such interruptions, thedeliberations upon Jim's fate went on night and day.

'Meanwhile he wandered about the courtyard, shunned by some, glared at by

others, but watched by all, and practically at the mercy of the first casualragamuffin with a chopper, in there. He took possession of a small tumble-downshed to sleep in; the effluvia of filth and rotten matter incommoded him greatly: itseems he had not lost his appetite though, because--he told me--he had beenhungry all the blessed time. Now and again "some fussy ass" deputed from thecouncil-room would come out running to him, and in honeyed tones wouldadminister amazing interrogatories: "Were the Dutch coming to take the country?Would the white man like to go back down the river? What was the object ofcoming to such a miserable country? The Rajah wanted to know whether thewhite man could repair a watch?" They did actually bring out to him a nickel clockof New England make, and out of sheer unbearable boredom he busied himselfin trying to get the alarum to work. It was apparently when thus occupied in hisshed that the true perception of his extreme peril dawned upon him. He droppedthe thing--he says--"like a hot potato," and walked out hastily, without theslightest idea of what he would, or indeed could, do. He only knew that theposition was intolerable. He strolled aimlessly beyond a sort of ramshackle littlegranary on posts, and his eyes fell on the broken stakes of the palisade; andthen--he says--at once, without any mental process as it were, without any stir ofemotion, he set about his escape as if executing a plan matured for a month.

'He walked off carelessly to give himself a good run, and when he faced aboutthere was some dignitary, with two spearmen in attendance, close at his elbowready with a question. He started off "from under his very nose," went over "like abird," and landed on the other side with a fall that jarred all his bones andseemed to split his head. He picked himself up instantly. He never thought ofanything at the time; all he could remember--he said--was a great yell; the firsthouses of Patusan were before him four hundred yards away; he saw the creek,and as it were mechanically put on more pace. The earth seemed fairly to flybackwards under his feet. He took off from the last dry spot, felt himself flyingthrough the air, felt himself, without any shock, planted upright in an extremelysoft and sticky mudbank. It was only when he tried to move his legs and found hecouldn't that, in his own words, "he came to himself." He began to think of the"bally long spears." As a matter of fact, considering that the people inside thestockade had to run to the gate, then get down to the landing-place, get intoboats, and pull round a point of land, he had more advance than he imagined.Besides, it being low water, the creek was without water--you couldn't call it dry--and practically he was safe for a time from everything but a very long shotperhaps. The higher firm ground was about six feet in front of him. "I thought Iwould have to die there all the same," he said. He reached and grabbeddesperately with his hands, and only succeeded in gathering a horrible cold shinyheap of slime against his breast--up to his very chin. It seemed to him he wasburying himself alive, and then he struck out madly, scattering the mud with hisfists. It fell on his head, on his face, over his eyes, into his mouth. He told me thathe remembered suddenly the courtyard, as you remember a place where youhad been very happy years ago. He longed--so he said--to be back there again,mending the clock. Mending the clock--that was the idea. He made efforts,tremendous sobbing, gasping efforts, efforts that seemed to burst his eyeballs intheir sockets and make him blind, and culminating into one mighty supreme effortin the darkness to crack the earth asunder, to throw it off his limbs--and he felthimself creeping feebly up the bank. He lay full length on the firm ground andsaw the light, the sky. Then as a sort of happy thought the notion came to himthat he would go to sleep. He will have it that he did actually go to sleep; that heslept--perhaps for a minute, perhaps for twenty seconds, or only for one second,but he recollects distinctly the violent convulsive start of awakening. He remainedlying still for a while, and then he arose muddy from head to foot and stood there,thinking he was alone of his kind for hundreds of miles, alone, with no help, nosympathy, no pity to expect from any one, like a hunted animal. The first houseswere not more than twenty yards from him; and it was the desperate screamingof a frightened woman trying to carry off a child that started him again. He peltedstraight on in his socks, beplastered with filth out of all semblance to a humanbeing. He traversed more than half the length of the settlement. The nimblerwomen fled right and left, the slower men just dropped whatever they had in theirhands, and remained petrified with dropping jaws.

'He was a flying terror. He says he noticed the little children trying to run for life,falling on their little stomachs and kicking. He swerved between two houses up aslope, clambered in desperation over a barricade of felled trees (there wasn't aweek without some fight in Patusan at that time), burst through a fence into amaize-patch, where a scared boy flung a stick at him, blundered upon a path,and ran all at once into the arms of several startled men. He just had breathenough to gasp out, "Doramin! Doramin!" He remembers being half-carried, half-rushed to the top of the slope, and in a vast enclosure with palms and fruit treesbeing run up to a large man sitting massively in a chair in the midst of thegreatest possible commotion and excitement. He fumbled in mud and clothes toproduce the ring, and, finding himself suddenly on his back, wondered who hadknocked him down. They had simply let him go--don't you know?--but he couldn'tstand. At the foot of the slope random shots were fired, and above the roofs ofthe settlement there rose a dull roar of amazement. But he was safe. Doramin'speople were barricading the gate and pouring water down his throat; Doramin'sold wife, full of business and commiseration, was issuing shrill orders to her girls."The old woman," he said softly, "made a to-do over me as if I had been her ownson. They put me into an immense bed--her state bed--and she ran in and outwiping her eyes to give me pats on the back. I must have been a pitiful object. Ijust lay there like a log for I don't know how long."

'He seemed to have a great liking for Doramin's old wife. She on her side hadtaken a motherly fancy to him. She had a round, nut-brown, soft face, all finewrinkles, large, bright red lips (she chewed betel assiduously), and screwed up,winking, benevolent eyes. She was constantly in movement, scolding busily andordering unceasingly a troop of young women with clear brown faces and biggrave eyes, her daughters, her servants, her slave-girls. You know how it is inthese households: it's generally impossible to tell the difference. She was veryspare, and even her ample outer garment, fastened in front with jewelled clasps,had somehow a skimpy effect. Her dark bare feet were thrust into yellow strawslippers of Chinese make. I have seen her myself flitting about with her extremelythick, long, grey hair falling about her shoulders. She uttered homely shrewdsayings, was of noble birth, and was eccentric and arbitrary. In the afternoon shewould sit in a very roomy arm-chair, opposite her husband, gazing steadilythrough a wide opening in the wall which gave an extensive view of thesettlement and the river.'She invariably tucked up her feet under her, but old Doramin sat squarely, satimposingly as a mountain sits on a plain. He was only of the nakhoda ormerchant class, but the respect shown to him and the dignity of his bearing werevery striking. He was the chief of the second power in Patusan. The immigrantsfrom Celebes (about sixty families that, with dependants and so on, could mustersome two hundred men "wearing the kriss") had elected him years ago for theirhead. The men of that race are intelligent, enterprising, revengeful, but with amore frank courage than the other Malays, and restless under oppression. Theyformed the party opposed to the Rajah. Of course the quarrels were for trade.This was the primary cause of faction fights, of the sudden outbreaks that wouldfill this or that part of the settlement with smoke, flame, the noise of shots andshrieks. Villages were burnt, men were dragged into the Rajah's stockade to bekilled or tortured for the crime of trading with anybody else but himself. Only aday or two before Jim's arrival several heads of households in the very fishingvillage that was afterwards taken under his especial protection had been drivenover the cliffs by a party of the Rajah's spearmen, on suspicion of having beencollecting edible birds' nests for a Celebes trader. Rajah Allang pretended to bethe only trader in his country, and the penalty for the breach of the monopoly wasdeath; but his idea of trading was indistinguishable from the commonest forms ofrobbery. His cruelty and rapacity had no other bounds than his cowardice, and hewas afraid of the organised power of the Celebes men, only--till Jim came--hewas not afraid enough to keep quiet. He struck at them through his subjects, andthought himself pathetically in the right. The situation was complicated by awandering stranger, an Arab half-breed, who, I believe, on purely religiousgrounds, had incited the tribes in the interior (the bush-folk, as Jim himself calledthem) to rise, and had established himself in a fortified camp on the summit ofone of the twin hills. He hung over the town of Patusan like a hawk over apoultry-yard, but he devastated the open country. Whole villages, deserted,rotted on their blackened posts over the banks of clear streams, droppingpiecemeal into the water the grass of their walls, the leaves of their roofs, with acurious effect of natural decay as if they had been a form of vegetation strickenby a blight at its very root. The two parties in Patusan were not sure which onethis partisan most desired to plunder. The Rajah intrigued with him feebly. Someof the Bugis settlers, weary with endless insecurity, were half inclined to call himin. The younger spirits amongst them, chaffing, advised to "get Sherif Ali with hiswild men and drive the Rajah Allang out of the country." Doramin restrained themwith difficulty. He was growing old, and, though his influence had not diminished,the situation was getting beyond him. This was the state of affairs when Jim,bolting from the Rajah's stockade, appeared before the chief of the Bugis,produced the ring, and was received, in a manner of speaking, into the heart ofthe community.' Chapter 26

'Doramin was one of the most remarkable men of his race I had ever seen. Hisbulk for a Malay was immense, but he did not look merely fat; he lookedimposing, monumental. This motionless body, clad in rich stuffs, coloured silks,gold embroideries; this huge head, enfolded in a red-and-gold headkerchief; theflat, big, round face, wrinkled, furrowed, with two semicircular heavy folds startingon each side of wide, fierce nostrils, and enclosing a thick-lipped mouth; thethroat like a bull; the vast corrugated brow overhanging the staring proud eyes--made a whole that, once seen, can never be forgotten. His impassive repose (heseldom stirred a limb when once he sat down) was like a display of dignity. Hewas never known to raise his voice. It was a hoarse and powerful murmur,slightly veiled as if heard from a distance. When he walked, two short, sturdyyoung fellows, naked to the waist, in white sarongs and with black skull-caps onthe backs of their heads, sustained his elbows; they would ease him down andstand behind his chair till he wanted to rise, when he would turn his head slowly,as if with difficulty, to the right and to the left, and then they would catch himunder his armpits and help him up. For all that, there was nothing of a crippleabout him: on the contrary, all his ponderous movements were likemanifestations of a mighty deliberate force. It was generally believed heconsulted his wife as to public affairs; but nobody, as far as I know, had everheard them exchange a single word. When they sat in state by the wide openingit was in silence. They could see below them in the declining light the vastexpanse of the forest country, a dark sleeping sea of sombre green undulating asfar as the violet and purple range of mountains; the shining sinuosity of the riverlike an immense letter S of beaten silver; the brown ribbon of houses followingthe sweep of both banks, overtopped by the twin hills uprising above the nearertree-tops. They were wonderfully contrasted: she, light, delicate, spare, quick, alittle witch-like, with a touch of motherly fussiness in her repose; he, facing her,immense and heavy, like a figure of a man roughly fashioned of stone, withsomething magnanimous and ruthless in his immobility. The son of these oldpeople was a most distinguished youth.

'They had him late in life. Perhaps he was not really so young as he looked.Four- or five-and-twenty is not so young when a man is already father of a familyat eighteen. When he entered the large room, lined and carpeted with fine mats,and with a high ceiling of white sheeting, where the couple sat in statesurrounded by a most deferential retinue, he would make his way straight toDoramin, to kiss his hand--which the other abandoned to him, majestically--andthen would step across to stand by his mother's chair. I suppose I may say theyidolised him, but I never caught them giving him an overt glance. Those, it is true,were public functions. The room was generally thronged. The solemn formality ofgreetings and leave-takings, the profound respect expressed in gestures, on thefaces, in the low whispers, is simply indescribable. "It's well worth seeing," Jimhad assured me while we were crossing the river, on our way back. "They arelike people in a book, aren't they?" he said triumphantly. "And Dain Waris--theirson--is the best friend (barring you) I ever had. What Mr. Stein would call a good'war-comrade.' I was in luck. Jove! I was in luck when I tumbled amongst them atmy last gasp." He meditated with bowed head, then rousing himself he added--'"Of course I didn't go to sleep over it, but . . ." He paused again. "It seemed tocome to me," he murmured. "All at once I saw what I had to do . . ."

'There was no doubt that it had come to him; and it had come through war, too,as is natural, since this power that came to him was the power to make peace. Itis in this sense alone that might so often is right. You must not think he had seenhis way at once. When he arrived the Bugis community was in a most criticalposition. "They were all afraid," he said to me--"each man afraid for himself; whileI could see as plain as possible that they must do something at once, if they didnot want to go under one after another, what between the Rajah and thatvagabond Sherif." But to see that was nothing. When he got his idea he had todrive it into reluctant minds, through the bulwarks of fear, of selfishness. Hedrove it in at last. And that was nothing. He had to devise the means. He devisedthem--an audacious plan; and his task was only half done. He had to inspire withhis own confidence a lot of people who had hidden and absurd reasons to hangback; he had to conciliate imbecile jealousies, and argue away all sorts ofsenseless mistrusts. Without the weight of Doramin's authority, and his son'sfiery enthusiasm, he would have failed. Dain Waris, the distinguished youth, wasthe first to believe in him; theirs was one of those strange, profound, rarefriendships between brown and white, in which the very difference of race seemsto draw two human beings closer by some mystic element of sympathy. Of DainWaris, his own people said with pride that he knew how to fight like a white man.This was true; he had that sort of courage--the courage in the open, I may say--but he had also a European mind. You meet them sometimes like that, and aresurprised to discover unexpectedly a familiar turn of thought, an unobscuredvision, a tenacity of purpose, a touch of altruism. Of small stature, but admirablywell proportioned, Dain Waris had a proud carriage, a polished, easy bearing, atemperament like a clear flame. His dusky face, with big black eyes, was inaction expressive, and in repose thoughtful. He was of a silent disposition; a firmglance, an ironic smile, a courteous deliberation of manner seemed to hint atgreat reserves of intelligence and power. Such beings open to the Western eye,so often concerned with mere surfaces, the hidden possibilities of races andlands over which hangs the mystery of unrecorded ages. He not only trusted Jim,he understood him, I firmly believe. I speak of him because he had captivatedme. His--if I may say so--his caustic placidity, and, at the same time, hisintelligent sympathy with Jim's aspirations, appealed to me. I seemed to beholdthe very origin of friendship. If Jim took the lead, the other had captivated hisleader. In fact, Jim the leader was a captive in every sense. The land, the people,the friendship, the love, were like the jealous guardians of his body. Every dayadded a link to the fetters of that strange freedom. I felt convinced of it, as fromday to day I learned more of the story.'The story! Haven't I heard the story? I've heard it on the march, in camp (hemade me scour the country after invisible game); I've listened to a good part of iton one of the twin summits, after climbing the last hundred feet or so on myhands and knees. Our escort (we had volunteer followers from village to village)had camped meantime on a bit of level ground half-way up the slope, and in thestill breathless evening the smell of wood-smoke reached our nostrils from belowwith the penetrating delicacy of some choice scent. Voices also ascended,wonderful in their distinct and immaterial clearness. Jim sat on the trunk of afelled tree, and pulling out his pipe began to smoke. A new growth of grass andbushes was springing up; there were traces of an earthwork under a mass ofthorny twigs. "It all started from here," he said, after a long and meditativesilence. On the other hill, two hundred yards across a sombre precipice, I saw aline of high blackened stakes, showing here and there ruinously--the remnants ofSherif Ali's impregnable camp.

'But it had been taken, though. That had been his idea. He had mountedDoramin's old ordnance on the top of that hill; two rusty iron 7-pounders, a lot ofsmall brass cannon--currency cannon. But if the brass guns represent wealth,they can also, when crammed recklessly to the muzzle, send a solid shot tosome little distance. The thing was to get them up there. He showed me wherehe had fastened the cables, explained how he had improvised a rude capstan outof a hollowed log turning upon a pointed stake, indicated with the bowl of his pipethe outline of the earthwork. The last hundred feet of the ascent had been themost difficult. He had made himself responsible for success on his own head. Hehad induced the war party to work hard all night. Big fires lighted at intervalsblazed all down the slope, "but up here," he explained, "the hoisting gang had tofly around in the dark." From the top he saw men moving on the hillside like antsat work. He himself on that night had kept on rushing down and climbing up like asquirrel, directing, encouraging, watching all along the line. Old Doramin hadhimself carried up the hill in his arm-chair. They put him down on the level placeupon the slope, and he sat there in the light of one of the big fires--"amazing oldchap--real old chieftain," said Jim, "with his little fierce eyes--a pair of immenseflintlock pistols on his knees. Magnificent things, ebony, silver-mounted, withbeautiful locks and a calibre like an old blunderbuss. A present from Stein, itseems--in exchange for that ring, you know. Used to belong to good old McNeil.God only knows how he came by them. There he sat, moving neither hand norfoot, a flame of dry brushwood behind him, and lots of people rushing about,shouting and pulling round him--the most solemn, imposing old chap you canimagine. He wouldn't have had much chance if Sherif Ali had let his infernal crewloose at us and stampeded my lot. Eh? Anyhow, he had come up there to die ifanything went wrong. No mistake! Jove! It thrilled me to see him there--like arock. But the Sherif must have thought us mad, and never troubled to come andsee how we got on. Nobody believed it could be done. Why! I think the verychaps who pulled and shoved and sweated over it did not believe it could bedone! Upon my word I don't think they did. . . ."'He stood erect, the smouldering brier-wood in his clutch, with a smile on his lipsand a sparkle in his boyish eyes. I sat on the stump of a tree at his feet, andbelow us stretched the land, the great expanse of the forests, sombre under thesunshine, rolling like a sea, with glints of winding rivers, the grey spots ofvillages, and here and there a clearing, like an islet of light amongst the darkwaves of continuous tree-tops. A brooding gloom lay over this vast andmonotonous landscape; the light fell on it as if into an abyss. The land devouredthe sunshine; only far off, along the coast, the empty ocean, smooth and polishedwithin the faint haze, seemed to rise up to the sky in a wall of steel.

'And there I was with him, high in the sunshine on the top of that historic hill ofhis. He dominated the forest, the secular gloom, the old mankind. He was like afigure set up on a pedestal, to represent in his persistent youth the power, andperhaps the virtues, of races that never grow old, that have emerged from thegloom. I don't know why he should always have appeared to me symbolic.Perhaps this is the real cause of my interest in his fate. I don't know whether itwas exactly fair to him to remember the incident which had given a new directionto his life, but at that very moment I remembered very distinctly. It was like ashadow in the light.' Chapter 27

'Already the legend had gifted him with supernatural powers. Yes, it was said,there had been many ropes cunningly disposed, and a strange contrivance thatturned by the efforts of many men, and each gun went up tearing slowly throughthe bushes, like a wild pig rooting its way in the undergrowth, but . . . and thewisest shook their heads. There was something occult in all this, no doubt; forwhat is the strength of ropes and of men's arms? There is a rebellious soul inthings which must be overcome by powerful charms and incantations. Thus oldSura--a very respectable householder of Patusan--with whom I had a quiet chatone evening. However, Sura was a professional sorcerer also, who attended allthe rice sowings and reapings for miles around for the purpose of subduing thestubborn souls of things. This occupation he seemed to think a most arduousone, and perhaps the souls of things are more stubborn than the souls of men.As to the simple folk of outlying villages, they believed and said (as the mostnatural thing in the world) that Jim had carried the guns up the hill on his back--two at a time.

'This would make Jim stamp his foot in vexation and exclaim with an exasperatedlittle laugh, "What can you do with such silly beggars? They will sit up half thenight talking bally rot, and the greater the lie the more they seem to like it." Youcould trace the subtle influence of his surroundings in this irritation. It was part ofhis captivity. The earnestness of his denials was amusing, and at last I said, "Mydear fellow, you don't suppose I believe this." He looked at me quite startled."Well, no! I suppose not," he said, and burst into a Homeric peal of laughter."Well, anyhow the guns were there, and went off all together at sunrise. Jove!You should have seen the splinters fly," he cried. By his side Dain Waris,listening with a quiet smile, dropped his eyelids and shuffled his feet a little. Itappears that the success in mounting the guns had given Jim's people such afeeling of confidence that he ventured to leave the battery under charge of twoelderly Bugis who had seen some fighting in their day, and went to join DainWaris and the storming party who were concealed in the ravine. In the smallhours they began creeping up, and when two-thirds of the way up, lay in the wetgrass waiting for the appearance of the sun, which was the agreed signal. Hetold me with what impatient anguishing emotion he watched the swift coming ofthe dawn; how, heated with the work and the climbing, he felt the cold dewchilling his very bones; how afraid he was he would begin to shiver and shakelike a leaf before the time came for the advance. "It was the slowest half-hour inmy life," he declared. Gradually the silent stockade came out on the sky abovehim. Men scattered all down the slope were crouching amongst the dark stonesand dripping bushes. Dain Waris was lying flattened by his side. "We looked ateach other," Jim said, resting a gentle hand on his friend's shoulder. "He smiledat me as cheery as you please, and I dared not stir my lips for fear I would breakout into a shivering fit. 'Pon my word, it's true! I had been streaming withperspiration when we took cover--so you may imagine . . ." He declared, and Ibelieve him, that he had no fears as to the result. He was only anxious as to hisability to repress these shivers. He didn't bother about the result. He was boundto get to the top of that hill and stay there, whatever might happen. There couldbe no going back for him. Those people had trusted him implicitly. Him alone! Hisbare word. . . .

'I remember how, at this point, he paused with his eyes fixed upon me. "As far ashe knew, they never had an occasion to regret it yet," he said. "Never. He hopedto God they never would. Meantime-- worse luck!--they had got into the habit oftaking his word for anything and everything. I could have no idea! Why, only theother day an old fool he had never seen in his life came from some village milesaway to find out if he should divorce his wife. Fact. Solemn word. That's the sortof thing. . . He wouldn't have believed it. Would I? Squatted on the verandahchewing betel-nut, sighing and spitting all over the place for more than an hour,and as glum as an undertaker before he came out with that dashed conundrum.That's the kind of thing that isn't so funny as it looks. What was a fellow to say?--Good wife?--Yes. Good wife--old though. Started a confounded long story aboutsome brass pots. Been living together for fifteen years--twenty years--could nottell. A long, long time. Good wife. Beat her a little--not much--just a little, whenshe was young. Had to--for the sake of his honour. Suddenly in her old age shegoes and lends three brass pots to her sister's son's wife, and begins to abusehim every day in a loud voice. His enemies jeered at him; his face was utterlyblackened. Pots totally lost. Awfully cut up about it. Impossible to fathom a storylike that; told him to go home, and promised to come along myself and settle itall. It's all very well to grin, but it was the dashedest nuisance! A day's journeythrough the forest, another day lost in coaxing a lot of silly villagers to get at therights of the affair. There was the making of a sanguinary shindy in the thing.Every bally idiot took sides with one family or the other, and one half of thevillage was ready to go for the other half with anything that came handy. Honourbright! No joke! . . . Instead of attending to their bally crops. Got him the infernalpots back of course--and pacified all hands. No trouble to settle it. Of course not.Could settle the deadliest quarrel in the country by crooking his little finger. Thetrouble was to get at the truth of anything. Was not sure to this day whether hehad been fair to all parties. It worried him. And the talk! Jove! There didn't seemto be any head or tail to it. Rather storm a twenty-foot-high old stockade any day.Much! Child's play to that other job. Wouldn't take so long either. Well, yes; afunny set out, upon the whole--the fool looked old enough to be his grandfather.But from another point of view it was no joke. His word decided everything--eversince the smashing of Sherif Ali. An awful responsibility," he repeated. "No,really-- joking apart, had it been three lives instead of three rotten brass pots itwould have been the same. . . ."

'Thus he illustrated the moral effect of his victory in war. It was in truth immense.It had led him from strife to peace, and through death into the innermost life ofthe people; but the gloom of the land spread out under the sunshine preservedits appearance of inscrutable, of secular repose. The sound of his fresh youngvoice-- it's extraordinary how very few signs of wear he showed--floated lightly,and passed away over the unchanged face of the forests like the sound of the bigguns on that cold dewy morning when he had no other concern on earth but theproper control of the chills in his body. With the first slant of sun-rays along theseimmovable tree-tops the summit of one hill wreathed itself, with heavy reports, inwhite clouds of smoke, and the other burst into an amazing noise of yells, war-cries, shouts of anger, of surprise, of dismay. Jim and Dain Waris were the first tolay their hands on the stakes. The popular story has it that Jim with a touch ofone finger had thrown down the gate. He was, of course, anxious to disclaim thisachievement. The whole stockade--he would insist on explaining to you--was apoor affair (Sherif Ali trusted mainly to the inaccessible position); and, anyway,the thing had been already knocked to pieces and only hung together by amiracle. He put his shoulder to it like a little fool and went in head over heels.Jove! If it hadn't been for Dain Waris, a pock-marked tattooed vagabond wouldhave pinned him with his spear to a baulk of timber like one of Stein's beetles.The third man in, it seems, had been Tamb' Itam, Jim's own servant. This was aMalay from the north, a stranger who had wandered into Patusan, and had beenforcibly detained by Rajah Allang as paddler of one of the state boats. He hadmade a bolt of it at the first opportunity, and finding a precarious refuge (but verylittle to eat) amongst the Bugis settlers, had attached himself to Jim's person. Hiscomplexion was very dark, his face flat, his eyes prominent and injected with bile.There was something excessive, almost fanatical, in his devotion to his "whitelord." He was inseparable from Jim like a morose shadow. On state occasions hewould tread on his master's heels, one hand on the haft of his kriss, keeping thecommon people at a distance by his truculent brooding glances. Jim had madehim the headman of his establishment, and all Patusan respected and courtedhim as a person of much influence. At the taking of the stockade he haddistinguished himself greatly by the methodical ferocity of his fighting. Thestorming party had come on so quick--Jim said--that notwithstanding the panic ofthe garrison, there was a "hot five minutes hand-to-hand inside that stockade, tillsome bally ass set fire to the shelters of boughs and dry grass, and we all had toclear out for dear life."

'The rout, it seems, had been complete. Doramin, waiting immovably in his chairon the hillside, with the smoke of the guns spreading slowly above his big head,received the news with a deep grunt. When informed that his son was safe andleading the pursuit, he, without another sound, made a mighty effort to rise; hisattendants hurried to his help, and, held up reverently, he shuffled with greatdignity into a bit of shade, where he laid himself down to sleep, covered entirelywith a piece of white sheeting. In Patusan the excitement was intense. Jim toldme that from the hill, turning his back on the stockade with its embers, blackashes, and half-consumed corpses, he could see time after time the open spacesbetween the houses on both sides of the stream fill suddenly with a seething rushof people and get empty in a moment. His ears caught feebly from below thetremendous din of gongs and drums; the wild shouts of the crowd reached him inbursts of faint roaring. A lot of streamers made a flutter as of little white, red,yellow birds amongst the brown ridges of roofs. "You must have enjoyed it," Imurmured, feeling the stir of sympathetic emotion.

' "It was . . . it was immense! Immense!" he cried aloud, flinging his arms open.The sudden movement startled me as though I had seen him bare the secrets ofhis breast to the sunshine, to the brooding forests, to the steely sea. Below usthe town reposed in easy curves upon the banks of a stream whose currentseemed to sleep. "Immense!" he repeated for a third time, speaking in a whisper,for himself alone.

'Immense! No doubt it was immense; the seal of success upon his words, theconquered ground for the soles of his feet, the blind trust of men, the belief inhimself snatched from the fire, the solitude of his achievement. All this, as I'vewarned you, gets dwarfed in the telling. I can't with mere words convey to you theimpression of his total and utter isolation. I know, of course, he was in everysense alone of his kind there, but the unsuspected qualities of his nature hadbrought him in such close touch with his surroundings that this isolation seemedonly the effect of his power. His loneliness added to his stature. There wasnothing within sight to compare him with, as though he had been one of thoseexceptional men who can be only measured by the greatness of their fame; andhis fame, remember, was the greatest thing around for many a day's journey.You would have to paddle, pole, or track a long weary way through the junglebefore you passed beyond the reach of its voice. Its voice was not the trumpetingof the disreputable goddess we all know--not blatant--not brazen. It took its tonefrom the stillness and gloom of the land without a past, where his word was theone truth of every passing day. It shared something of the nature of that silencethrough which it accompanied you into unexplored depths, heard continuously byyour side, penetrating, far-reaching--tinged with wonder and mystery on the lipsof whispering men.' Chapter 28

'The defeated Sherif Ali fled the country without making another stand, and whenthe miserable hunted villagers began to crawl out of the jungle back to theirrotting houses, it was Jim who, in consultation with Dain Waris, appointed theheadmen. Thus he became the virtual ruler of the land. As to old Tunku Allang,his fears at first had known no bounds. It is said that at the intelligence of thesuccessful storming of the hill he flung himself, face down, on the bamboo floorof his audience-hall, and lay motionless for a whole night and a whole day,uttering stifled sounds of such an appalling nature that no man dared approachhis prostrate form nearer than a spear's length. Already he could see himselfdriven ignominiously out of Patusan, wandering abandoned, stripped, withoutopium, without his women, without followers, a fair game for the first comer to kill.After Sherif Ali his turn would come, and who could resist an attack led by such adevil? And indeed he owed his life and such authority as he still possessed at thetime of my visit to Jim's idea of what was fair alone. The Bugis had beenextremely anxious to pay off old scores, and the impassive old Doramincherished the hope of yet seeing his son ruler of Patusan. During one of ourinterviews he deliberately allowed me to get a glimpse of this secret ambition.Nothing could be finer in its way than the dignified wariness of his approaches.He himself--he began by declaring--had used his strength in his young days, butnow he had grown old and tired. . . . With his imposing bulk and haughty littleeyes darting sagacious, inquisitive glances, he reminded one irresistibly of acunning old elephant; the slow rise and fall of his vast breast went on powerfuland regular, like the heave of a calm sea. He too, as he protested, had anunbounded confidence in Tuan Jim's wisdom. If he could only obtain a promise!One word would be enough! . . . His breathing silences, the low rumblings of hisvoice, recalled the last efforts of a spent thunderstorm.

'I tried to put the subject aside. It was difficult, for there could be no question thatJim had the power; in his new sphere there did not seem to be anything that wasnot his to hold or to give. But that, I repeat, was nothing in comparison with thenotion, which occurred to me, while I listened with a show of attention, that heseemed to have come very near at last to mastering his fate. Doramin wasanxious about the future of the country, and I was struck by the turn he gave tothe argument. The land remains where God had put it; but white men--he said--they come to us and in a little while they go. They go away. Those they leavebehind do not know when to look for their return. They go to their own land, totheir people, and so this white man too would. . . . I don't know what induced meto commit myself at this point by a vigorous "No, no." The whole extent of thisindiscretion became apparent when Doramin, turning full upon me his face,whose expression, fixed in rugged deep folds, remained unalterable, like a hugebrown mask, said that this was good news indeed, reflectively; and then wantedto know why.'His little, motherly witch of a wife sat on my other hand, with her head coveredand her feet tucked up, gazing through the great shutter-hole. I could only see astraying lock of grey hair, a high cheek-bone, the slight masticating motion of thesharp chin. Without removing her eyes from the vast prospect of forestsstretching as far as the hills, she asked me in a pitying voice why was it that heso young had wandered from his home, coming so far, through so manydangers? Had he no household there, no kinsmen in his own country? Had he noold mother, who would always remember his face? . . .

'I was completely unprepared for this. I could only mutter and shake my headvaguely. Afterwards I am perfectly aware I cut a very poor figure trying toextricate myself out of this difficulty. From that moment, however, the oldnakhoda became taciturn. He was not very pleased, I fear, and evidently I hadgiven him food for thought. Strangely enough, on the evening of that very day(which was my last in Patusan) I was once more confronted with the samequestion, with the unanswerable why of Jim's fate. And this brings me to the storyof his love.

'I suppose you think it is a story that you can imagine for yourselves. We haveheard so many such stories, and the majority of us don't believe them to bestories of love at all. For the most part we look upon them as stories ofopportunities: episodes of passion at best, or perhaps only of youth andtemptation, doomed to forgetfulness in the end, even if they pass through thereality of tenderness and regret. This view mostly is right, and perhaps in thiscase too. . . . Yet I don't know. To tell this story is by no means so easy as itshould be--were the ordinary standpoint adequate. Apparently it is a story verymuch like the others: for me, however, there is visible in its background themelancholy figure of a woman, the shadow of a cruel wisdom buried in a lonelygrave, looking on wistfully, helplessly, with sealed lips. The grave itself, as I cameupon it during an early morning stroll, was a rather shapeless brown mound, withan inlaid neat border of white lumps of coral at the base, and enclosed within acircular fence made of split saplings, with the bark left on. A garland of leavesand flowers was woven about the heads of the slender posts--and the flowerswere fresh.

'Thus, whether the shadow is of my imagination or not, I can at all events pointout the significant fact of an unforgotten grave. When I tell you besides that Jimwith his own hands had worked at the rustic fence, you will perceive directly thedifference, the individual side of the story. There is in his espousal of memoryand affection belonging to another human being something characteristic of hisseriousness. He had a conscience, and it was a romantic conscience. Throughher whole life the wife of the unspeakable Cornelius had no other companion,confidant, and friend but her daughter. How the poor woman had come to marrythe awful little Malacca Portuguese--after the separation from the father of hergirl--and how that separation had been brought about, whether by death, whichcan be sometimes merciful, or by the merciless pressure of conventions, is amystery to me. From the little which Stein (who knew so many stories) had letdrop in my hearing, I am convinced that she was no ordinary woman. Her ownfather had been a white; a high official; one of the brilliantly endowed men whoare not dull enough to nurse a success, and whose careers so often end under acloud. I suppose she too must have lacked the saving dullness--and her careerended in Patusan. Our common fate . . . for where is the man--I mean a realsentient man--who does not remember vaguely having been deserted in thefullness of possession by some one or something more precious than life? . . .our common fate fastens upon the women with a peculiar cruelty. It does notpunish like a master, but inflicts lingering torment, as if to gratify a secret,unappeasable spite. One would think that, appointed to rule on earth, it seeks torevenge itself upon the beings that come nearest to rising above the trammels ofearthly caution; for it is only women who manage to put at times into their love anelement just palpable enough to give one a fright--an extra-terrestrial touch.

'I ask myself with wonder--how the world can look to them--whether it has theshape and substance we know, the air we breathe! Sometimes I fancy it must bea region of unreasonable sublimities seething with the excitement of theiradventurous souls, lighted by the glory of all possible risks and renunciations.However, I suspect there are very few women in the world, though of course I amaware of the multitudes of mankind and of the equality of sexes--in point ofnumbers, that is. But I am sure that the mother was as much of a woman as thedaughter seemed to be. I cannot help picturing to myself these two, at first theyoung woman and the child, then the old woman and the young girl, the awfulsameness and the swift passage of time, the barrier of forest, the solitude andthe turmoil round these two lonely lives, and every word spoken between thempenetrated with sad meaning. There must have been confidences, not so muchof fact, I suppose, as of innermost feelings-- regrets--fears--warnings, no doubt:warnings that the younger did not fully understand till the elder was dead--andJim came along. Then I am sure she understood much--not everything--the fearmostly, it seems. Jim called her by a word that means precious, in the sense of aprecious gem--jewel. Pretty, isn't it? But he was capable of anything. He wasequal to his fortune, as he--after all--must have been equal to his misfortune.Jewel he called her; and he would say this as he might have said "Jane," don'tyou know--with a marital, homelike, peaceful effect. I heard the name for the firsttime ten minutes after I had landed in his courtyard, when, after nearly shakingmy arm off, he darted up the steps and began to make a joyous, boyishdisturbance at the door under the heavy eaves. "Jewel! O Jewel! Quick! Here's afriend come," . . .and suddenly peering at me in the dim verandah, he mumbledearnestly, "You know--this--no confounded nonsense about it--can't tell you howmuch I owe to her--and so--you understand--I-- exactly as if . . ."

'His hurried, anxious whispers were cut short by the flitting of a white form withinthe house, a faint exclamation, and a child-like but energetic little face withdelicate features and a profound, attentive glance peeped out of the inner gloom,like a bird out of the recess of a nest. I was struck by the name, of course; but itwas not till later on that I connected it with an astonishing rumour that had metme on my journey, at a little place on the coast about 230 miles south of PatusanRiver. Stein's schooner, in which I had my passage, put in there, to collect someproduce, and, going ashore, I found to my great surprise that the wretchedlocality could boast of a third-class deputy-assistant resident, a big, fat, greasy,blinking fellow of mixed descent, with turned-out, shiny lips. I found him lyingextended on his back in a cane chair, odiously unbuttoned, with a large greenleaf of some sort on the top of his steaming head, and another in his hand whichhe used lazily as a fan . . . Going to Patusan? Oh yes. Stein's Trading Company.He knew. Had a permission? No business of his. It was not so bad there now, heremarked negligently, and, he went on drawling, "There's some sort of whitevagabond has got in there, I hear. . . . Eh? What you say? Friend of yours? So! . .. Then it was true there was one of these verdammte-- What was he up to?Found his way in, the rascal. Eh? I had not been sure. Patusan--they cut throatsthere--no business of ours." He interrupted himself to groan. "Phoo! Almighty!The heat! The heat! Well, then, there might be something in the story too, afterall, and . . ." He shut one of his beastly glassy eyes (the eyelid went on quivering)while he leered at me atrociously with the other. "Look here," says hemysteriously, "if--do you understand?--if he has really got hold of something fairlygood--none of your bits of green glass--understand?--I am a Government official--you tell the rascal . . . Eh? What? Friend of yours?" . . . He continued wallowingcalmly in the chair . . . "You said so; that's just it; and I am pleased to give youthe hint. I suppose you too would like to get something out of it? Don't interrupt.You just tell him I've heard the tale, but to my Government I have made noreport. Not yet. See? Why make a report? Eh? Tell him to come to me if they lethim get alive out of the country. He had better look out for himself. Eh? I promiseto ask no questions. On the quiet--you understand? You too--you shall getsomething from me. Small commission for the trouble. Don't interrupt. I am aGovernment official, and make no report. That's business. Understand? I knowsome good people that will buy anything worth having, and can give him moremoney than the scoundrel ever saw in his life. I know his sort." He fixed mesteadfastly with both his eyes open, while I stood over him utterly amazed, andasking myself whether he was mad or drunk. He perspired, puffed, moaningfeebly, and scratching himself with such horrible composure that I could not bearthe sight long enough to find out.

'Next day, talking casually with the people of the little native court of the place, Idiscovered that a story was travelling slowly down the coast about a mysteriouswhite man in Patusan who had got hold of an extraordinary gem--namely, anemerald of an enormous size, and altogether priceless. The emerald seems toappeal more to the Eastern imagination than any other precious stone. The whiteman had obtained it, I was told, partly by the exercise of his wonderful strengthand partly by cunning, from the ruler of a distant country, whence he had fledinstantly, arriving in Patusan in utmost distress, but frightening the people by hisextreme ferocity, which nothing seemed able to subdue. Most of my informantswere of the opinion that the stone was probably unlucky,--like the famous stoneof the Sultan of Succadana, which in the old times had brought wars and untoldcalamities upon that country. Perhaps it was the same stone--one couldn't say.Indeed the story of a fabulously large emerald is as old as the arrival of the firstwhite men in the Archipelago; and the belief in it is so persistent that less thanforty years ago there had been an official Dutch inquiry into the truth of it. Such ajewel--it was explained to me by the old fellow from whom I heard most of thisamazing Jim-myth--a sort of scribe to the wretched little Rajah of the place;--such a jewel, he said, cocking his poor purblind eyes up at me (he was sitting onthe cabin floor out of respect), is best preserved by being concealed about theperson of a woman. Yet it is not every woman that would do. She must be young--he sighed deeply--and insensible to the seductions of love. He shook his headsceptically. But such a woman seemed to be actually in existence. He had beentold of a tall girl, whom the white man treated with great respect and care, andwho never went forth from the house unattended. People said the white mancould be seen with her almost any day; they walked side by side, openly, heholding her arm under his-- pressed to his side--thus--in a most extraordinaryway. This might be a lie, he conceded, for it was indeed a strange thing for anyone to do: on the other hand, there could be no doubt she wore the white man'sjewel concealed upon her bosom.' Chapter 29

'This was the theory of Jim's marital evening walks. I made a third on more thanone occasion, unpleasantly aware every time of Cornelius, who nursed theaggrieved sense of his legal paternity, slinking in the neighbourhood with thatpeculiar twist of his mouth as if he were perpetually on the point of gnashing histeeth. But do you notice how, three hundred miles beyond the end of telegraphcables and mail-boat lines, the haggard utilitarian lies of our civilisation witherand die, to be replaced by pure exercises of imagination, that have the futility,often the charm, and sometimes the deep hidden truthfulness, of works of art?Romance had singled Jim for its own--and that was the true part of the story,which otherwise was all wrong. He did not hide his jewel. In fact, he wasextremely proud of it.

'It comes to me now that I had, on the whole, seen very little of her. What Iremember best is the even, olive pallor of her complexion, and the intense blue-black gleams of her hair, flowing abundantly from under a small crimson cap shewore far back on her shapely head. Her movements were free, assured, and sheblushed a dusky red. While Jim and I were talking, she would come and go withrapid glances at us, leaving on her passage an impression of grace and charmand a distinct suggestion of watchfulness. Her manner presented a curiouscombination of shyness and audacity. Every pretty smile was succeeded swiftlyby a look of silent, repressed anxiety, as if put to flight by the recollection of someabiding danger. At times she would sit down with us and, with her soft cheekdimpled by the knuckles of her little hand, she would listen to our talk; her bigclear eyes would remain fastened on our lips, as though each pronounced wordhad a visible shape. Her mother had taught her to read and write; she hadlearned a good bit of English from Jim, and she spoke it most amusingly, with hisown clipping, boyish intonation. Her tenderness hovered over him like a flutter ofwings. She lived so completely in his contemplation that she had acquiredsomething of his outward aspect, something that recalled him in her movements,in the way she stretched her arm, turned her head, directed her glances. Hervigilant affection had an intensity that made it almost perceptible to the senses; itseemed actually to exist in the ambient matter of space, to envelop him like apeculiar fragrance, to dwell in the sunshine like a tremulous, subdued, andimpassioned note. I suppose you think that I too am romantic, but it is a mistake.I am relating to you the sober impressions of a bit of youth, of a strange uneasyromance that had come in my way. I observed with interest the work of his--well--good fortune. He was jealously loved, but why she should be jealous, and ofwhat, I could not tell. The land, the people, the forests were her accomplices,guarding him with vigilant accord, with an air of seclusion, of mystery, ofinvincible possession. There was no appeal, as it were; he was imprisoned withinthe very freedom of his power, and she, though ready to make a footstool of herhead for his feet, guarded her conquest inflexibly--as though he were hard tokeep. The very Tamb' Itam, marching on our journeys upon the heels of his whitelord, with his head thrown back, truculent and be-weaponed like a janissary, withkriss, chopper, and lance (besides carrying Jim's gun); even Tamb' Itam allowedhimself to put on the airs of uncompromising guardianship, like a surly devotedjailer ready to lay down his life for his captive. On the evenings when we sat uplate, his silent, indistinct form would pass and repass under the verandah, withnoiseless footsteps, or lifting my head I would unexpectedly make him outstanding rigidly erect in the shadow. As a general rule he would vanish after atime, without a sound; but when we rose he would spring up close to us as if fromthe ground, ready for any orders Jim might wish to give. The girl too, I believe,never went to sleep till we had separated for the night. More than once I saw herand Jim through the window of my room come out together quietly and lean onthe rough balustrade --two white forms very close, his arm about her waist, herhead on his shoulder. Their soft murmurs reached me, penetrating, tender, with acalm sad note in the stillness of the night, like a self-communion of one beingcarried on in two tones. Later on, tossing on my bed under the mosquito-net, Iwas sure to hear slight creakings, faint breathing, a throat cleared cautiously--and I would know that Tamb' Itam was still on the prowl. Though he had (by thefavour of the white lord) a house in the compound, had "taken wife," and hadlately been blessed with a child, I believe that, during my stay at all events, heslept on the verandah every night.

'It was very difficult to make this faithful and grim retainer talk. Even Jim himselfwas answered in jerky short sentences, under protest as it were. Talking, heseemed to imply, was no business of his. The longest speech I heard himvolunteer was one morning when, suddenly extending his hand towards thecourtyard, he pointed at Cornelius and said, "Here comes the Nazarene." I don'tthink he was addressing me, though I stood at his side; his object seemed ratherto awaken the indignant attention of the universe. Some muttered allusions,which followed, to dogs and the smell of roast-meat, struck me as singularlyfelicitous. The courtyard, a large square space, was one torrid blaze of sunshine,and, bathed in intense light, Cornelius was creeping across in full view with aninexpressible effect of stealthiness, of dark and secret slinking. He reminded oneof everything that is unsavoury. His slow laborious walk resembled the creepingof a repulsive beetle, the legs alone moving with horrid industry while the bodyglided evenly. I suppose he made straight enough for the place where he wantedto get to, but his progress with one shoulder carried forward seemed oblique. Hewas often seen circling slowly amongst the sheds, as if following a scent; passingbefore the verandah with upward stealthy glances; disappearing without hasteround the corner of some hut. That he seemed free of the place demonstratedJim's absurd carelessness or else his infinite disdain, for Cornelius had played avery dubious part (to say the least of it) in a certain episode which might haveended fatally for Jim. As a matter of fact, it had redounded to his glory. Buteverything redounded to his glory; and it was the irony of his good fortune thathe, who had been too careful of it once, seemed to bear a charmed life.'You must know he had left Doramin's place very soon after his arrival--much toosoon, in fact, for his safety, and of course a long time before the war. In this hewas actuated by a sense of duty; he had to look after Stein's business, he said.Hadn't he? To that end, with an utter disregard of his personal safety, he crossedthe river and took up his quarters with Cornelius. How the latter had managed toexist through the troubled times I can't say. As Stein's agent, after all, he musthave had Doramin's protection in a measure; and in one way or another he hadmanaged to wriggle through all the deadly complications, while I have no doubtthat his conduct, whatever line he was forced to take, was marked by thatabjectness which was like the stamp of the man. That was his characteristic; hewas fundamentally and outwardly abject, as other men are markedly of agenerous, distinguished, or venerable appearance. It was the element of hisnature which permeated all his acts and passions and emotions; he ragedabjectly, smiled abjectly, was abjectly sad; his civilities and his indignations werealike abject. I am sure his love would have been the most abject of sentiments--but can one imagine a loathsome insect in love? And his loathsomeness, too,was abject, so that a simply disgusting person would have appeared noble by hisside. He has his place neither in the background nor in the foreground of thestory; he is simply seen skulking on its outskirts, enigmatical and unclean,tainting the fragrance of its youth and of its naiveness.

'His position in any case could not have been other than extremely miserable, yetit may very well be that he found some advantages in it. Jim told me he had beenreceived at first with an abject display of the most amicable sentiments. "Thefellow apparently couldn't contain himself for joy," said Jim with disgust. "He flewat me every morning to shake both my hands--confound him!--but I could nevertell whether there would be any breakfast. If I got three meals in two days Iconsidered myself jolly lucky, and he made me sign a chit for ten dollars everyweek. Said he was sure Mr. Stein did not mean him to keep me for nothing. Well--he kept me on nothing as near as possible. Put it down to the unsettled state ofthe country, and made as if to tear his hair out, begging my pardon twenty timesa day, so that I had at last to entreat him not to worry. It made me sick. Half theroof of his house had fallen in, and the whole place had a mangy look, with wispsof dry grass sticking out and the corners of broken mats flapping on every wall.He did his best to make out that Mr. Stein owed him money on the last threeyears' trading, but his books were all torn, and some were missing. He tried tohint it was his late wife's fault. Disgusting scoundrel! At last I had to forbid him tomention his late wife at all. It made Jewel cry. I couldn't discover what became ofall the trade-goods; there was nothing in the store but rats, having a high old timeamongst a litter of brown paper and old sacking. I was assured on every handthat he had a lot of money buried somewhere, but of course could get nothing outof him. It was the most miserable existence I led there in that wretched house. Itried to do my duty by Stein, but I had also other matters to think of. When Iescaped to Doramin old Tunku Allang got frightened and returned all my things. Itwas done in a roundabout way, and with no end of mystery, through a Chinamanwho keeps a small shop here; but as soon as I left the Bugis quarter and went tolive with Cornelius it began to be said openly that the Rajah had made up hismind to have me killed before long. Pleasant, wasn't it? And I couldn't see whatthere was to prevent him if he really had made up his mind. The worst of it was, Icouldn't help feeling I wasn't doing any good either for Stein or for myself. Oh! itwas beastly--the whole six weeks of it." ' Chapter 30

'He told me further that he didn't know what made him hang on--but of course wemay guess. He sympathised deeply with the defenceless girl, at the mercy of that"mean, cowardly scoundrel." It appears Cornelius led her an awful life, stoppingonly short of actual ill-usage, for which he had not the pluck, I suppose. Heinsisted upon her calling him father--"and with respect, too--with respect," hewould scream, shaking a little yellow fist in her face. "I am a respectable man,and what are you? Tell me--what are you? You think I am going to bring upsomebody else's child and not be treated with respect? You ought to be glad I letyou. Come-- say Yes, father. . . . No? . . . You wait a bit." Thereupon he wouldbegin to abuse the dead woman, till the girl would run off with her hands to herhead. He pursued her, dashing in and out and round the house and amongst thesheds, would drive her into some corner, where she would fall on her kneesstopping her ears, and then he would stand at a distance and declaim filthydenunciations at her back for half an hour at a stretch. "Your mother was a devil,a deceitful devil--and you too are a devil," he would shriek in a final outburst, pickup a bit of dry earth or a handful of mud (there was plenty of mud around thehouse), and fling it into her hair. Sometimes, though, she would hold out full ofscorn, confronting him in silence, her face sombre and contracted, and only nowand then uttering a word or two that would make the other jump and writhe withthe sting. Jim told me these scenes were terrible. It was indeed a strange thing tocome upon in a wilderness. The endlessness of such a subtly cruel situation wasappalling--if you think of it. The respectable Cornelius (Inchi 'Nelyus the Malayscalled him, with a grimace that meant many things) was a much-disappointedman.

'I don't know what he had expected would be done for him in consideration of hismarriage; but evidently the liberty to steal, and embezzle, and appropriate tohimself for many years and in any way that suited him best, the goods of Stein'sTrading Company (Stein kept the supply up unfalteringly as long as he could gethis skippers to take it there) did not seem to him a fair equivalent for the sacrificeof his honourable name. Jim would have enjoyed exceedingly thrashingCornelius within an inch of his life; on the other hand, the scenes were of sopainful a character, so abominable, that his impulse would be to get out ofearshot, in order to spare the girl's feelings. They left her agitated, speechless,clutching her bosom now and then with a stony, desperate face, and then Jimwould lounge up and say unhappily, "Now--come--really--what's the use--youmust try to eat a bit," or give some such mark of sympathy. Cornelius would keepon slinking through the doorways, across the verandah and back again, as muteas a fish, and with malevolent, mistrustful, underhand glances. "I can stop hisgame," Jim said to her once. "Just say the word." And do you know what sheanswered? She said--Jim told me impressively--that if she had not been sure hewas intensely wretched himself, she would have found the courage to kill himwith her own hands. "Just fancy that! The poor devil of a girl, almost a child,being driven to talk like that," he exclaimed in horror. It seemed impossible tosave her not only from that mean rascal but even from herself! It wasn't that hepitied her so much, he affirmed; it was more than pity; it was as if he hadsomething on his conscience, while that life went on. To leave the house wouldhave appeared a base desertion. He had understood at last that there wasnothing to expect from a longer stay, neither accounts nor money, nor truth ofany sort, but he stayed on, exasperating Cornelius to the verge, I won't say ofinsanity, but almost of courage. Meantime he felt all sorts of dangers gatheringobscurely about him. Doramin had sent over twice a trusty servant to tell himseriously that he could do nothing for his safety unless he would recross the riveragain and live amongst the Bugis as at first. People of every condition used tocall, often in the dead of night, in order to disclose to him plots for hisassassination. He was to be poisoned. He was to be stabbed in the bath-house.Arrangements were being made to have him shot from a boat on the river. Eachof these informants professed himself to be his very good friend. It was enough--he told me--to spoil a fellow's rest for ever. Something of the kind was extremelypossible--nay, probable--but the lying warnings gave him only the sense ofdeadly scheming going on all around him, on all sides, in the dark. Nothing morecalculated to shake the best of nerve. Finally, one night, Cornelius himself, with agreat apparatus of alarm and secrecy, unfolded in solemn wheedling tones a littleplan wherein for one hundred dollars--or even for eighty; let's say eighty--he,Cornelius, would procure a trustworthy man to smuggle Jim out of the river, allsafe. There was nothing else for it now--if Jim cared a pin for his life. What'seighty dollars? A trifle. An insignificant sum. While he, Cornelius, who had toremain behind, was absolutely courting death by this proof of devotion to Mr.Stein's young friend. The sight of his abject grimacing was--Jim told me--veryhard to bear: he clutched at his hair, beat his breast, rocked himself to and frowith his hands pressed to his stomach, and actually pretended to shed tears.

'"Your blood be on your own head," he squeaked at last, and rushed out. It is acurious question how far Cornelius was sincere in that performance. Jimconfessed to me that he did not sleep a wink after the fellow had gone. He lay onhis back on a thin mat spread over the bamboo flooring, trying idly to make outthe bare rafters, and listening to the rustlings in the torn thatch. A star suddenlytwinkled through a hole in the roof. His brain was in a whirl; but, nevertheless, itwas on that very night that he matured his plan for overcoming Sherif Ali. It hadbeen the thought of all the moments he could spare from the hopelessinvestigation into Stein's affairs, but the notion--he says--came to him then all atonce. He could see, as it were, the guns mounted on the top of the hill. He gotvery hot and excited lying there; sleep was out of the question more than ever.He jumped up, and went out barefooted on the verandah. Walking silently, hecame upon the girl, motionless against the wall, as if on the watch. In his thenstate of mind it did not surprise him to see her up, nor yet to hear her ask in ananxious whisper where Cornelius could be. He simply said he did not know. Shemoaned a little, and peered into the campong. Everything was very quiet. He waspossessed by his new idea, and so full of it that he could not help telling the girlall about it at once. She listened, clapped her hands lightly, whispered softly heradmiration, but was evidently on the alert all the time. It seems he had been usedto make a confidant of her all along--and that she on her part could and did givehim a lot of useful hints as to Patusan affairs there is no doubt. He assured memore than once that he had never found himself the worse for her advice. At anyrate, he was proceeding to explain his plan fully to her there and then, when shepressed his arm once, and vanished from his side. Then Cornelius appearedfrom somewhere, and, perceiving Jim, ducked sideways, as though he had beenshot at, and afterwards stood very still in the dusk. At last he came forwardprudently, like a suspicious cat. "There were some fishermen there--with fish," hesaid in a shaky voice. "To sell fish--you understand." . . . It must have been thentwo o'clock in the morning--a likely time for anybody to hawk fish about!

'Jim, however, let the statement pass, and did not give it a single thought. Othermatters occupied his mind, and besides he had neither seen nor heard anything.He contented himself by saying, "Oh!" absently, got a drink of water out of apitcher standing there, and leaving Cornelius a prey to some inexplicableemotion--that made him embrace with both arms the worm-eaten rail of theverandah as if his legs had failed--went in again and lay down on his mat to think.By-and-by he heard stealthy footsteps. They stopped. A voice whisperedtremulously through the wall, "Are you asleep?" "No! What is it?" he answeredbriskly, and there was an abrupt movement outside, and then all was still, as ifthe whisperer had been startled. Extremely annoyed at this, Jim came outimpetuously, and Cornelius with a faint shriek fled along the verandah as far asthe steps, where he hung on to the broken banister. Very puzzled, Jim called outto him from the distance to know what the devil he meant. "Have you given yourconsideration to what I spoke to you about?" asked Cornelius, pronouncing thewords with difficulty, like a man in the cold fit of a fever. "No!" shouted Jim in apassion. "I have not, and I don't intend to. I am going to live here, in Patusan.""You shall d-d-die h-h-here," answered Cornelius, still shaking violently, and in asort of expiring voice. The whole performance was so absurd and provoking thatJim didn't know whether he ought to be amused or angry. "Not till I have seenyou tucked away, you bet," he called out, exasperated yet ready to laugh. Halfseriously (being excited with his own thoughts, you know) he went on shouting,"Nothing can touch me! You can do your damnedest." Somehow the shadowyCornelius far off there seemed to be the hateful embodiment of all theannoyances and difficulties he had found in his path. He let himself go--hisnerves had been over-wrought for days--and called him many pretty names,--swindler, liar, sorry rascal: in fact, carried on in an extraordinary way. He admitshe passed all bounds, that he was quite beside himself--defied all Patusan toscare him away--declared he would make them all dance to his own tune yet,and so on, in a menacing, boasting strain. Perfectly bombastic and ridiculous, hesaid. His ears burned at the bare recollection. Must have been off his chump insome way. . . . The girl, who was sitting with us, nodded her little head at mequickly, frowned faintly, and said, "I heard him," with child-like solemnity. Helaughed and blushed. What stopped him at last, he said, was the silence, thecomplete deathlike silence, of the indistinct figure far over there, that seemed tohang collapsed, doubled over the rail in a weird immobility. He came to hissenses, and ceasing suddenly, wondered greatly at himself. He watched for awhile. Not a stir, not a sound. "Exactly as if the chap had died while I had beenmaking all that noise," he said. He was so ashamed of himself that he wentindoors in a hurry without another word, and flung himself down again. The rowseemed to have done him good though, because he went to sleep for the rest ofthe night like a baby. Hadn't slept like that for weeks. "But I didn't sleep," struck inthe girl, one elbow on the table and nursing her cheek. "I watched." Her big eyesflashed, rolling a little, and then she fixed them on my face intently.' Chapter 31

'You may imagine with what interest I listened. All these details were perceived tohave some significance twenty-four hours later. In the morning Cornelius madeno allusion to the events of the night. "I suppose you will come back to my poorhouse," he muttered, surlily, slinking up just as Jim was entering the canoe to goover to Doramin's campong. Jim only nodded, without looking at him. "You find itgood fun, no doubt," muttered the other in a sour tone. Jim spent the day with theold nakhoda, preaching the necessity of vigorous action to the principal men ofthe Bugis community, who had been summoned for a big talk. He rememberedwith pleasure how very eloquent and persuasive he had been. "I managed to putsome backbone into them that time, and no mistake," he said. Sherif Ali's lastraid had swept the outskirts of the settlement, and some women belonging to thetown had been carried off to the stockade. Sherif Ali's emissaries had been seenin the market-place the day before, strutting about haughtily in white cloaks, andboasting of the Rajah's friendship for their master. One of them stood forward inthe shade of a tree, and, leaning on the long barrel of a rifle, exhorted the peopleto prayer and repentance, advising them to kill all the strangers in their midst,some of whom, he said, were infidels and others even worse--children of Satanin the guise of Moslems. It was reported that several of the Rajah's peopleamongst the listeners had loudly expressed their approbation. The terroramongst the common people was intense. Jim, immensely pleased with his day'swork, crossed the river again before sunset.

'As he had got the Bugis irretrievably committed to action and had made himselfresponsible for success on his own head, he was so elated that in the lightnessof his heart he absolutely tried to be civil with Cornelius. But Cornelius becamewildly jovial in response, and it was almost more than he could stand, he says, tohear his little squeaks of false laughter, to see him wriggle and blink, andsuddenly catch hold of his chin and crouch low over the table with a distractedstare. The girl did not show herself, and Jim retired early. When he rose to saygood-night, Cornelius jumped up, knocking his chair over, and ducked out ofsight as if to pick up something he had dropped. His good-night came huskilyfrom under the table. Jim was amazed to see him emerge with a dropping jaw,and staring, stupidly frightened eyes. He clutched the edge of the table. "What'sthe matter? Are you unwell?" asked Jim. "Yes, yes, yes. A great colic in mystomach," says the other; and it is Jim's opinion that it was perfectly true. If so, itwas, in view of his contemplated action, an abject sign of a still imperfectcallousness for which he must be given all due credit.

'Be it as it may, Jim's slumbers were disturbed by a dream of heavens like brassresounding with a great voice, which called upon him to Awake! Awake! so loudthat, notwithstanding his desperate determination to sleep on, he did wake up inreality. The glare of a red spluttering conflagration going on in mid-air fell on hiseyes. Coils of black thick smoke curved round the head of some apparition, someunearthly being, all in white, with a severe, drawn, anxious face. After a secondor so he recognised the girl. She was holding a dammar torch at arm's-lengthaloft, and in a persistent, urgent monotone she was repeating, "Get up! Get up!Get up!"

'Suddenly he leaped to his feet; at once she put into his hand a revolver, his ownrevolver, which had been hanging on a nail, but loaded this time. He gripped it insilence, bewildered, blinking in the light. He wondered what he could do for her.

'She asked rapidly and very low, "Can you face four men with this?" He laughedwhile narrating this part at the recollection of his polite alacrity. It seems he madea great display of it. "Certainly-- of course--certainly--command me." He was notproperly awake, and had a notion of being very civil in these extraordinarycircumstances, of showing his unquestioning, devoted readiness. She left theroom, and he followed her; in the passage they disturbed an old hag who did thecasual cooking of the household, though she was so decrepit as to be hardlyable to understand human speech. She got up and hobbled behind them,mumbling toothlessly. On the verandah a hammock of sail-cloth, belonging toCornelius, swayed lightly to the touch of Jim's elbow. It was empty.

'The Patusan establishment, like all the posts of Stein's Trading Company, hadoriginally consisted of four buildings. Two of them were represented by twoheaps of sticks, broken bamboos, rotten thatch, over which the four corner-postsof hardwood leaned sadly at different angles: the principal storeroom, however,stood yet, facing the agent's house. It was an oblong hut, built of mud and clay; ithad at one end a wide door of stout planking, which so far had not come off thehinges, and in one of the side walls there was a square aperture, a sort ofwindow, with three wooden bars. Before descending the few steps the girl turnedher face over her shoulder and said quickly, "You were to be set upon while youslept." Jim tells me he experienced a sense of deception. It was the old story. Hewas weary of these attempts upon his life. He had had his fill of these alarms. Hewas sick of them. He assured me he was angry with the girl for deceiving him. Hehad followed her under the impression that it was she who wanted his help, andnow he had half a mind to turn on his heel and go back in disgust. "Do youknow," he commented profoundly, "I rather think I was not quite myself for wholeweeks on end about that time." "Oh yes. You were though," I couldn't helpcontradicting.

'But she moved on swiftly, and he followed her into the courtyard. All its fenceshad fallen in a long time ago; the neighbours' buffaloes would pace in themorning across the open space, snorting profoundly, without haste; the veryjungle was invading it already. Jim and the girl stopped in the rank grass. Thelight in which they stood made a dense blackness all round, and only above theirheads there was an opulent glitter of stars. He told me it was a beautiful night--quite cool, with a little stir of breeze from the river. It seems he noticed its friendlybeauty. Remember this is a love story I am telling you now. A lovely nightseemed to breathe on them a soft caress. The flame of the torch streamed nowand then with a fluttering noise like a flag, and for a time this was the only sound."They are in the storeroom waiting," whispered the girl; "they are waiting for thesignal." "Who's to give it?" he asked. She shook the torch, which blazed up aftera shower of sparks. "Only you have been sleeping so restlessly," she continuedin a murmur; "I watched your sleep, too." "You!" he exclaimed, craning his neckto look about him. "You think I watched on this night only!" she said, with a sort ofdespairing indignation.

'He says it was as if he had received a blow on the chest. He gasped. He thoughthe had been an awful brute somehow, and he felt remorseful, touched, happy,elated. This, let me remind you again, is a love story; you can see it by theimbecility, not a repulsive imbecility, the exalted imbecility of these proceedings,this station in torchlight, as if they had come there on purpose to have it out forthe edification of concealed murderers. If Sherif Ali's emissaries had beenpossessed--as Jim remarked--of a pennyworth of spunk, this was the time tomake a rush. His heart was thumping--not with fear--but he seemed to hear thegrass rustle, and he stepped smartly out of the light. Something dark, imperfectlyseen, flitted rapidly out of sight. He called out in a strong voice, "Cornelius! OCornelius!" A profound silence succeeded: his voice did not seem to have carriedtwenty feet. Again the girl was by his side. "Fly!" she said. The old woman wascoming up; her broken figure hovered in crippled little jumps on the edge of thelight; they heard her mumbling, and a light, moaning sigh. "Fly!" repeated the girlexcitedly. "They are frightened now--this light--the voices. They know you areawake now--they know you are big, strong, fearless . . ." "If I am all that," hebegan; but she interrupted him: "Yes--to-night! But what of to-morrow night? Ofthe next night? Of the night after--of all the many, many nights? Can I be alwayswatching?" A sobbing catch of her breath affected him beyond the power ofwords.

'He told me that he had never felt so small, so powerless--and as to courage,

what was the good of it? he thought. He was so helpless that even flight seemedof no use; and though she kept on whispering, "Go to Doramin, go to Doramin,"with feverish insistence, he realised that for him there was no refuge from thatloneliness which centupled all his dangers except--in her. "I thought," he said tome, "that if I went away from her it would be the end of everything somehow."Only as they couldn't stop there for ever in the middle of that courtyard, he madeup his mind to go and look into the storehouse. He let her follow him withoutthinking of any protest, as if they had been indissolubly united. "I am fearless--amI?" he muttered through his teeth. She restrained his arm. "Wait till you hear myvoice," she said, and, torch in hand, ran lightly round the corner. He remainedalone in the darkness, his face to the door: not a sound, not a breath came fromthe other side. The old hag let out a dreary groan somewhere behind his back.He heard a high-pitched almost screaming call from the girl. "Now! Push!" Hepushed violently; the door swung with a creak and a clatter, disclosing to hisintense astonishment the low dungeon-like interior illuminated by a lurid,wavering glare. A turmoil of smoke eddied down upon an empty wooden crate inthe middle of the floor, a litter of rags and straw tried to soar, but only stirredfeebly in the draught. She had thrust the light through the bars of the window. Hesaw her bare round arm extended and rigid, holding up the torch with thesteadiness of an iron bracket. A conical ragged heap of old mats cumbered adistant corner almost to the ceiling, and that was all.

'He explained to me that he was bitterly disappointed at this. His fortitude hadbeen tried by so many warnings, he had been for weeks surrounded by so manyhints of danger, that he wanted the relief of some reality, of something tangiblethat he could meet. "It would have cleared the air for a couple of hours at least, ifyou know what I mean," he said to me. "Jove! I had been living for days with astone on my chest." Now at last he had thought he would get hold of something,and--nothing! Not a trace, not a sign of anybody. He had raised his weapon asthe door flew open, but now his arm fell. "Fire! Defend yourself," the girl outsidecried in an agonising voice. She, being in the dark and with her arm thrust in tothe shoulder through the small hole, couldn't see what was going on, and shedared not withdraw the torch now to run round. "There's nobody here!" yelled Jimcontemptuously, but his impulse to burst into a resentful exasperated laugh diedwithout a sound: he had perceived in the very act of turning away that he wasexchanging glances with a pair of eyes in the heap of mats. He saw a shiftinggleam of whites. "Come out!" he cried in a fury, a little doubtful, and a dark-facedhead, a head without a body, shaped itself in the rubbish, a strangely detachedhead, that looked at him with a steady scowl. Next moment the whole moundstirred, and with a low grunt a man emerged swiftly, and bounded towards Jim.Behind him the mats as it were jumped and flew, his right arm was raised with acrooked elbow, and the dull blade of a kriss protruded from his fist held off, a littleabove his head. A cloth wound tight round his loins seemed dazzlingly white onhis bronze skin; his naked body glistened as if wet.

'Jim noted all this. He told me he was experiencing a feeling of unutterable relief,of vengeful elation. He held his shot, he says, deliberately. He held it for the tenthpart of a second, for three strides of the man--an unconscionable time. He held itfor the pleasure of saying to himself, That's a dead man! He was absolutelypositive and certain. He let him come on because it did not matter. A dead man,anyhow. He noticed the dilated nostrils, the wide eyes, the intent, eager stillnessof the face, and then he fired.

'The explosion in that confined space was stunning. He stepped back a pace. Hesaw the man jerk his head up, fling his arms forward, and drop the kriss. Heascertained afterwards that he had shot him through the mouth, a little upwards,the bullet coming out high at the back of the skull. With the impetus of his rushthe man drove straight on, his face suddenly gaping disfigured, with his handsopen before him gropingly, as though blinded, and landed with terrific violence onhis forehead, just short of Jim's bare toes. Jim says he didn't lose the smallestdetail of all this. He found himself calm, appeased, without rancour, withoutuneasiness, as if the death of that man had atoned for everything. The place wasgetting very full of sooty smoke from the torch, in which the unswaying flameburned blood-red without a flicker. He walked in resolutely, striding over the deadbody, and covered with his revolver another naked figure outlined vaguely at theother end. As he was about to pull the trigger, the man threw away with force ashort heavy spear, and squatted submissively on his hams, his back to the walland his clasped hands between his legs. "You want your life?" Jim said. Theother made no sound. "How many more of you?" asked Jim again. "Two more,Tuan," said the man very softly, looking with big fascinated eyes into the muzzleof the revolver. Accordingly two more crawled from under the mats, holding outostentatiously their empty hands.' Chapter 32

'Jim took up an advantageous position and shepherded them out in a bunch

through the doorway: all that time the torch had remained vertical in the grip of alittle hand, without so much as a tremble. The three men obeyed him, perfectlymute, moving automatically. He ranged them in a row. "Link arms!" he ordered.They did so. "The first who withdraws his arm or turns his head is a dead man,"he said. "March!" They stepped out together, rigidly; he followed, and at the sidethe girl, in a trailing white gown, her black hair falling as low as her waist, borethe light. Erect and swaying, she seemed to glide without touching the earth; theonly sound was the silky swish and rustle of the long grass. "Stop!" cried Jim.

'The river-bank was steep; a great freshness ascended, the light fell on the edgeof smooth dark water frothing without a ripple; right and left the shapes of thehouses ran together below the sharp outlines of the roofs. "Take my greetings toSherif Ali--till I come myself," said Jim. Not one head of the three budged."Jump!" he thundered. The three splashes made one splash, a shower flew up,black heads bobbed convulsively, and disappeared; but a great blowing andspluttering went on, growing faint, for they were diving industriously in great fearof a parting shot. Jim turned to the girl, who had been a silent and attentiveobserver. His heart seemed suddenly to grow too big for his breast and chokehim in the hollow of his throat. This probably made him speechless for so long,and after returning his gaze she flung the burning torch with a wide sweep of thearm into the river. The ruddy fiery glare, taking a long flight through the night,sank with a vicious hiss, and the calm soft starlight descended upon them,unchecked.

'He did not tell me what it was he said when at last he recovered his voice. I don'tsuppose he could be very eloquent. The world was still, the night breathed onthem, one of those nights that seem created for the sheltering of tenderness, andthere are moments when our souls, as if freed from their dark envelope, glowwith an exquisite sensibility that makes certain silences more lucid thanspeeches. As to the girl, he told me, "She broke down a bit. Excitement--don'tyou know. Reaction. Deucedly tired she must have been--and all that kind ofthing. And--and--hang it all--she was fond of me, don't you see. . . . I too. . . didn'tknow, of course . . . never entered my head . . ."

'Then he got up and began to walk about in some agitation. "I--I love her dearly.More than I can tell. Of course one cannot tell. You take a different view of youractions when you come to understand, when you are made to understand everyday that your existence is necessary--you see, absolutely necessary--to anotherperson. I am made to feel that. Wonderful! But only try to think what her life hasbeen. It is too extravagantly awful! Isn't it? And me finding her here like this--asyou may go out for a stroll and come suddenly upon somebody drowning in alonely dark place. Jove! No time to lose. Well, it is a trust too . . . I believe I amequal to it . . ."

'I must tell you the girl had left us to ourselves some time before. He slapped hischest. "Yes! I feel that, but I believe I am equal to all my luck!" He had the gift offinding a special meaning in everything that happened to him. This was the viewhe took of his love affair; it was idyllic, a little solemn, and also true, since hisbelief had all the unshakable seriousness of youth. Some time after, on anotheroccasion, he said to me, "I've been only two years here, and now, upon my word,I can't conceive being able to live anywhere else. The very thought of the worldoutside is enough to give me a fright; because, don't you see," he continued, withdowncast eyes watching the action of his boot busied in squashing thoroughly atiny bit of dried mud (we were strolling on the river-bank)-- "because I have notforgotten why I came here. Not yet!"

'I refrained from looking at him, but I think I heard a short sigh; we took a turn ortwo in silence. "Upon my soul and conscience," he began again, "if such a thingcan be forgotten, then I think I have a right to dismiss it from my mind. Ask anyman here" . . . his voice changed. "Is it not strange," he went on in a gentle,almost yearning tone, "that all these people, all these people who would doanything for me, can never be made to understand? Never! If you disbelieved meI could not call them up. It seems hard, somehow. I am stupid, am I not? Whatmore can I want? If you ask them who is brave--who is true--who is just--who is itthey would trust with their lives?--they would say, Tuan Jim. And yet they cannever know the real, real truth . . ."

'That's what he said to me on my last day with him. I did not let a murmur escapeme: I felt he was going to say more, and come no nearer to the root of the matter.The sun, whose concentrated glare dwarfs the earth into a restless mote of dust,had sunk behind the forest, and the diffused light from an opal sky seemed tocast upon a world without shadows and without brilliance the illusion of a calmand pensive greatness. I don't know why, listening to him, I should have noted sodistinctly the gradual darkening of the river, of the air; the irresistible slow work ofthe night settling silently on all the visible forms, effacing the outlines, burying theshapes deeper and deeper, like a steady fall of impalpable black dust.

' "Jove!" he began abruptly, "there are days when a fellow is too absurd foranything; only I know I can tell you what I like. I talk about being done with it--withthe bally thing at the back of my head . . . Forgetting . . . Hang me if I know! I canthink of it quietly. After all, what has it proved? Nothing. I suppose you don't thinkso . . ."

'I made a protesting murmur.

' "No matter," he said. "I am satisfied . . . nearly. I've got to look only at the face ofthe first man that comes along, to regain my confidence. They can't be made tounderstand what is going on in me. What of that? Come! I haven't done sobadly."

' "Not so badly," I said.

' "But all the same, you wouldn't like to have me aboard your own ship hey?"

' "Confound you!" I cried. "Stop this."

' "Aha! You see," he said, crowing, as it were, over me placidly. "Only," he wenton, "you just try to tell this to any of them here. They would think you a fool, a liar,or worse. And so I can stand it. I've done a thing or two for them, but this is whatthey have done for me."

' "My dear chap," I cried, "you shall always remain for them an insolublemystery." Thereupon we were silent.

'After the sun had set, the darkness seemed to drive upon us, borne in every faintpuff of the breeze. In the middle of a hedged path I saw the arrested, gaunt,watchful, and apparently one-legged silhouette of Tamb' Itam; and across thedusky space my eye detected something white moving to and fro behind thesupports of the roof. As soon as Jim, with Tamb' Itam at his heels, had startedupon his evening rounds, I went up to the house alone, and, unexpectedly, foundmyself waylaid by the girl, who had been clearly waiting for this opportunity.

'It is hard to tell you what it was precisely she wanted to wrest from me.Obviously it would be something very simple--the simplest impossibility in theworld; as, for instance, the exact description of the form of a cloud. She wantedan assurance, a statement, a promise, an explanation--I don't know how to call it:the thing has no name. It was dark under the projecting roof, and all I could seewere the flowing lines of her gown, the pale small oval of her face, with the whiteflash of her teeth, and, turned towards me, the big sombre orbits of her eyes,where there seemed to be a faint stir, such as you may fancy you can detectwhen you plunge your gaze to the bottom of an immensely deep well. What is itthat moves there? you ask yourself. Is it a blind monster or only a lost gleam fromthe universe? It occurred to me--don't laugh--that all things being dissimilar, shewas more inscrutable in her childish ignorance than the Sphinx propoundingchildish riddles to wayfarers. She had been carried off to Patusan before hereyes were open. She had grown up there; she had seen nothing, she had knownnothing, she had no conception of anything. I ask myself whether she were surethat anything else existed. What notions she may have formed of the outsideworld is to me inconceivable: all that she knew of its inhabitants were a betrayedwoman and a sinister pantaloon. Her lover also came to her from there, giftedwith irresistible seductions; but what would become of her if he should return tothese inconceivable regions that seemed always to claim back their own? Hermother had warned her of this with tears, before she died . . .

'She had caught hold of my arm firmly, and as soon as I had stopped she hadwithdrawn her hand in haste. She was audacious and shrinking. She fearednothing, but she was checked by the profound incertitude and the extremestrangeness--a brave person groping in the dark. I belonged to this Unknown thatmight claim Jim for its own at any moment. I was, as it were, in the secret of itsnature and of its intentions--the confidant of a threatening mystery--armed with itspower perhaps! I believe she supposed I could with a word whisk Jim away out ofher very arms; it is my sober conviction she went through agonies ofapprehension during my long talks with Jim; through a real and intolerableanguish that might have conceivably driven her into plotting my murder, had thefierceness of her soul been equal to the tremendous situation it had created. Thisis my impression, and it is all I can give you: the whole thing dawned graduallyupon me, and as it got clearer and clearer I was overwhelmed by a slowincredulous amazement. She made me believe her, but there is no word that onmy lips could render the effect of the headlong and vehement whisper, of thesoft, passionate tones, of the sudden breathless pause and the appealingmovement of the white arms extended swiftly. They fell; the ghostly figureswayed like a slender tree in the wind, the pale oval of the face drooped; it wasimpossible to distinguish her features, the darkness of the eyes wasunfathomable; two wide sleeves uprose in the dark like unfolding wings, and shestood silent, holding her head in her hands.' Chapter 33

'I was immensely touched: her youth, her ignorance, her pretty beauty, which hadthe simple charm and the delicate vigour of a wild-flower, her pathetic pleading,her helplessness, appealed to me with almost the strength of her ownunreasonable and natural fear. She feared the unknown as we all do, and herignorance made the unknown infinitely vast. I stood for it, for myself, for youfellows, for all the world that neither cared for Jim nor needed him in the least. Iwould have been ready enough to answer for the indifference of the teemingearth but for the reflection that he too belonged to this mysterious unknown of herfears, and that, however much I stood for, I did not stand for him. This made mehesitate. A murmur of hopeless pain unsealed my lips. I began by protesting thatI at least had come with no intention to take Jim away.

'Why did I come, then? After a slight movement she was as still as a marblestatue in the night. I tried to explain briefly: friendship, business; if I had any wishin the matter it was rather to see him stay. . . . "They always leave us," shemurmured. The breath of sad wisdom from the grave which her piety wreathedwith flowers seemed to pass in a faint sigh. . . . Nothing, I said, could separateJim from her.

'It is my firm conviction now; it was my conviction at the time; it was the onlypossible conclusion from the facts of the case. It was not made more certain byher whispering in a tone in which one speaks to oneself, "He swore this to me.""Did you ask him?" I said.

'She made a step nearer. "No. Never!" She had asked him only to go away. Itwas that night on the river-bank, after he had killed the man--after she had flungthe torch in the water because he was looking at her so. There was too muchlight, and the danger was over then--for a little time--for a little time. He said thenhe would not abandon her to Cornelius. She had insisted. She wanted him toleave her. He said that he could not--that it was impossible. He trembled while hesaid this. She had felt him tremble. . . . One does not require much imagination tosee the scene, almost to hear their whispers. She was afraid for him too. Ibelieve that then she saw in him only a predestined victim of dangers which sheunderstood better than himself. Though by nothing but his mere presence he hadmastered her heart, had filled all her thoughts, and had possessed himself of allher affections, she underestimated his chances of success. It is obvious that atabout that time everybody was inclined to underestimate his chances. Strictlyspeaking he didn't seem to have any. I know this was Cornelius's view. Heconfessed that much to me in extenuation of the shady part he had played inSherif Ali's plot to do away with the infidel. Even Sherif Ali himself, as it seemscertain now, had nothing but contempt for the white man. Jim was to bemurdered mainly on religious grounds, I believe. A simple act of piety (and so farinfinitely meritorious), but otherwise without much importance. In the last part ofthis opinion Cornelius concurred. "Honourable sir," he argued abjectly on the onlyoccasion he managed to have me to himself--"honourable sir, how was I toknow? Who was he? What could he do to make people believe him? What didMr. Stein mean sending a boy like that to talk big to an old servant? I was readyto save him for eighty dollars. Only eighty dollars. Why didn't the fool go? Was Ito get stabbed myself for the sake of a stranger?" He grovelled in spirit beforeme, with his body doubled up insinuatingly and his hands hovering about myknees, as though he were ready to embrace my legs. "What's eighty dollars? Aninsignificant sum to give to a defenceless old man ruined for life by a deceasedshe-devil." Here he wept. But I anticipate. I didn't that night chance uponCornelius till I had had it out with the girl.

'She was unselfish when she urged Jim to leave her, and even to leave thecountry. It was his danger that was foremost in her thoughts--even if she wantedto save herself too--perhaps unconsciously: but then look at the warning she had,look at the lesson that could be drawn from every moment of the recently endedlife in which all her memories were centred. She fell at his feet--she told me so--there by the river, in the discreet light of stars which showed nothing except greatmasses of silent shadows, indefinite open spaces, and trembling faintly upon thebroad stream made it appear as wide as the sea. He had lifted her up. He liftedher up, and then she would struggle no more. Of course not. Strong arms, atender voice, a stalwart shoulder to rest her poor lonely little head upon. Theneed--the infinite need--of all this for the aching heart, for the bewildered mind;--the promptings of youth--the necessity of the moment. What would you have?One understands--unless one is incapable of understanding anything under thesun. And so she was content to be lifted up--and held. "You know--Jove! this isserious--no nonsense in it!" as Jim had whispered hurriedly with a troubledconcerned face on the threshold of his house. I don't know so much aboutnonsense, but there was nothing light-hearted in their romance: they cametogether under the shadow of a life's disaster, like knight and maiden meeting toexchange vows amongst haunted ruins. The starlight was good enough for thatstory, a light so faint and remote that it cannot resolve shadows into shapes, andshow the other shore of a stream. I did look upon the stream that night and fromthe very place; it rolled silent and as black as Styx: the next day I went away, butI am not likely to forget what it was she wanted to be saved from when sheentreated him to leave her while there was time. She told me what it was,calmed--she was now too passionately interested for mere excitement--in a voiceas quiet in the obscurity as her white half-lost figure. She told me, "I didn't want todie weeping." I thought I had not heard aright.

' "You did not want to die weeping?" I repeated after her. "Like my mother," sheadded readily. The outlines of her white shape did not stir in the least. "Mymother had wept bitterly before she died," she explained. An inconceivablecalmness seemed to have risen from the ground around us, imperceptibly, likethe still rise of a flood in the night, obliterating the familiar landmarks of emotions.There came upon me, as though I had felt myself losing my footing in the midstof waters, a sudden dread, the dread of the unknown depths. She went onexplaining that, during the last moments, being alone with her mother, she had toleave the side of the couch to go and set her back against the door, in order tokeep Cornelius out. He desired to get in, and kept on drumming with both fists,only desisting now and again to shout huskily, "Let me in! Let me in! Let me in!"In a far corner upon a few mats the moribund woman, already speechless andunable to lift her arm, rolled her head over, and with a feeble movement of herhand seemed to command--"No! No!" and the obedient daughter, setting hershoulders with all her strength against the door, was looking on. "The tears fellfrom her eyes--and then she died," concluded the girl in an imperturbablemonotone, which more than anything else, more than the white statuesqueimmobility of her person, more than mere words could do, troubled my mindprofoundly with the passive, irremediable horror of the scene. It had the power todrive me out of my conception of existence, out of that shelter each of us makesfor himself to creep under in moments of danger, as a tortoise withdraws withinits shell. For a moment I had a view of a world that seemed to wear a vast anddismal aspect of disorder, while, in truth, thanks to our unwearied efforts, it is assunny as arrangement of small conveniences as the mind of man can conceive.But still--it was only a moment: I went back into my shell directly. One must--don'tyou know?--though I seemed to have lost all my words in the chaos of darkthoughts I had contemplated for a second or two beyond the pale. These cameback, too, very soon, for words also belong to the sheltering conception of lightand order which is our refuge. I had them ready at my disposal before shewhispered softly, "He swore he would never leave me, when we stood therealone! He swore to me!". . . "And it is possible that you--you! do not believe him?"I asked, sincerely reproachful, genuinely shocked. Why couldn't she believe?Wherefore this craving for incertitude, this clinging to fear, as if incertitude andfear had been the safeguards of her love. It was monstrous. She should havemade for herself a shelter of inexpugnable peace out of that honest affection.She had not the knowledge--not the skill perhaps. The night had come on apace;it had grown pitch-dark where we were, so that without stirring she had faded likethe intangible form of a wistful and perverse spirit. And suddenly I heard her quietwhisper again, "Other men had sworn the same thing." It was like a meditativecomment on some thoughts full of sadness, of awe. And she added, still lower ifpossible, "My father did." She paused the time to draw an inaudible breath. "Herfather too." . . . These were the things she knew! At once I said, "Ah! but he is notlike that." This, it seemed, she did not intend to dispute; but after a time thestrange still whisper wandering dreamily in the air stole into my ears. "Why is hedifferent? Is he better? Is he . . ." "Upon my word of honour," I broke in, "I believehe is." We subdued our tones to a mysterious pitch. Amongst the huts of Jim'sworkmen (they were mostly liberated slaves from the Sherif's stockade)somebody started a shrill, drawling song. Across the river a big fire (at Doramin's,I think) made a glowing ball, completely isolated in the night. "Is he more true?"she murmured. "Yes," I said. "More true than any other man," she repeated inlingering accents. "Nobody here," I said, "would dream of doubting his word--nobody would dare--except you."

'I think she made a movement at this. "More brave," she went on in a changedtone. "Fear will never drive him away from you," I said a little nervously. The songstopped short on a shrill note, and was succeeded by several voices talking inthe distance. Jim's voice too. I was struck by her silence. "What has he beentelling you? He has been telling you something?" I asked. There was no answer."What is it he told you?" I insisted.

' "Do you think I can tell you? How am I to know? How am I to understand?" shecried at last. There was a stir. I believe she was wringing her hands. "There issomething he can never forget."

' "So much the better for you," I said gloomily.

' "What is it? What is it?" She put an extraordinary force of appeal into hersupplicating tone. "He says he had been afraid. How can I believe this? Am I amad woman to believe this? You all remember something! You all go back to it.What is it? You tell me! What is this thing? Is it alive?--is it dead? I hate it. It iscruel. Has it got a face and a voice--this calamity? Will he see it--will he hear it?In his sleep perhaps when he cannot see me--and then arise and go. Ah! I shallnever forgive him. My mother had forgiven--but I, never! Will it be a sign--a call?"

'It was a wonderful experience. She mistrusted his very slumbers--and sheseemed to think I could tell her why! Thus a poor mortal seduced by the charm ofan apparition might have tried to wring from another ghost the tremendous secretof the claim the other world holds over a disembodied soul astray amongst thepassions of this earth. The very ground on which I stood seemed to melt undermy feet. And it was so simple too; but if the spirits evoked by our fears and ourunrest have ever to vouch for each other's constancy before the forlornmagicians that we are, then I--I alone of us dwellers in the flesh--have shudderedin the hopeless chill of such a task. A sign, a call! How telling in its expressionwas her ignorance. A few words! How she came to know them, how she came topronounce them, I can't imagine. Women find their inspiration in the stress ofmoments that for us are merely awful, absurd, or futile. To discover that she hada voice at all was enough to strike awe into the heart. Had a spurned stone criedout in pain it could not have appeared a greater and more pitiful miracle. Thesefew sounds wandering in the dark had made their two benighted lives tragic tomy mind. It was impossible to make her understand. I chafed silently at myimpotence. And Jim, too--poor devil! Who would need him? Who wouldremember him? He had what he wanted. His very existence probably had beenforgotten by this time. They had mastered their fates. They were tragic.'Her immobility before me was clearly expectant, and my part was to speak formy brother from the realm of forgetful shade. I was deeply moved at myresponsibility and at her distress. I would have given anything for the power tosoothe her frail soul, tormenting itself in its invincible ignorance like a small birdbeating about the cruel wires of a cage. Nothing easier than to say, Have no fear!Nothing more difficult. How does one kill fear, I wonder? How do you shoot aspectre through the heart, slash off its spectral head, take it by its spectralthroat? It is an enterprise you rush into while you dream, and are glad to makeyour escape with wet hair and every limb shaking. The bullet is not run, the bladenot forged, the man not born; even the winged words of truth drop at your feetlike lumps of lead. You require for such a desperate encounter an enchanted andpoisoned shaft dipped in a lie too subtle to be found on earth. An enterprise for adream, my masters!

'I began my exorcism with a heavy heart, with a sort of sullen anger in it too.Jim's voice, suddenly raised with a stern intonation, carried across the courtyard,reproving the carelessness of some dumb sinner by the river-side. Nothing--Isaid, speaking in a distinct murmur--there could be nothing, in that unknownworld she fancied so eager to rob her of her happiness, there was nothing,neither living nor dead, there was no face, no voice, no power, that could tear Jimfrom her side. I drew breath and she whispered softly, "He told me so." "He toldyou the truth," I said. "Nothing," she sighed out, and abruptly turned upon mewith a barely audible intensity of tone: "Why did you come to us from out there?He speaks of you too often. You make me afraid. Do you--do you want him?" Asort of stealthy fierceness had crept into our hurried mutters. "I shall never comeagain," I said bitterly. "And I don't want him. No one wants him." "No one," sherepeated in a tone of doubt. "No one," I affirmed, feeling myself swayed by somestrange excitement. "You think him strong, wise, courageous, great--why notbelieve him to be true too? I shall go to-morrow--and that is the end. You shallnever be troubled by a voice from there again. This world you don't know is toobig to miss him. You understand? Too big. You've got his heart in your hand. Youmust feel that. You must know that." "Yes, I know that," she breathed out, hardand still, as a statue might whisper.

'I felt I had done nothing. And what is it that I had wished to do? I am not surenow. At the time I was animated by an inexplicable ardour, as if before somegreat and necessary task--the influence of the moment upon my mental andemotional state. There are in all our lives such moments, such influences,coming from the outside, as it were, irresistible, incomprehensible--as if broughtabout by the mysterious conjunctions of the planets. She owned, as I had put it toher, his heart. She had that and everything else--if she could only believe it. WhatI had to tell her was that in the whole world there was no one who ever wouldneed his heart, his mind, his hand. It was a common fate, and yet it seemed anawful thing to say of any man. She listened without a word, and her stillness nowwas like the protest of an invincible unbelief. What need she care for the worldbeyond the forests? I asked. From all the multitudes that peopled the vastness ofthat unknown there would come, I assured her, as long as he lived, neither a callnor a sign for him. Never. I was carried away. Never! Never! I remember withwonder the sort of dogged fierceness I displayed. I had the illusion of having gotthe spectre by the throat at last. Indeed the whole real thing has left behind thedetailed and amazing impression of a dream. Why should she fear? She knewhim to be strong, true, wise, brave. He was all that. Certainly. He was more. Hewas great--invincible--and the world did not want him, it had forgotten him, itwould not even know him.

'I stopped; the silence over Patusan was profound, and the feeble dry sound of apaddle striking the side of a canoe somewhere in the middle of the river seemedto make it infinite. "Why?" she murmured. I felt that sort of rage one feels duringa hard tussle. The spectre vas trying to slip out of my grasp. "Why?" sherepeated louder; "tell me!" And as I remained confounded, she stamped with herfoot like a spoilt child. "Why? Speak." "You want to know?" I asked in a fury."Yes!" she cried. "Because he is not good enough," I said brutally. During themoment's pause I noticed the fire on the other shore blaze up, dilating the circleof its glow like an amazed stare, and contract suddenly to a red pin-point. I onlyknew how close to me she had been when I felt the clutch of her fingers on myforearm. Without raising her voice, she threw into it an infinity of scathingcontempt, bitterness, and despair.

' "This is the very thing he said. . . . You lie!"

'The last two words she cried at me in the native dialect. "Hear me out!" Ientreated; she caught her breath tremulously, flung my arm away. "Nobody,nobody is good enough," I began with the greatest earnestness. I could hear thesobbing labour of her breath frightfully quickened. I hung my head. What was theuse? Footsteps were approaching; I slipped away without another word. . . .' Chapter 34

Marlow swung his legs out, got up quickly, and staggered a little, as though hehad been set down after a rush through space. He leaned his back against thebalustrade and faced a disordered array of long cane chairs. The bodies prone inthem seemed startled out of their torpor by his movement. One or two sat up as ifalarmed; here and there a cigar glowed yet; Marlow looked at them all with theeyes of a man returning from the excessive remoteness of a dream. A throat wascleared; a calm voice encouraged negligently, 'Well.'

'Nothing,' said Marlow with a slight start. 'He had told her--that's all. She did notbelieve him--nothing more. As to myself, I do not know whether it be just, proper,decent for me to rejoice or to be sorry. For my part, I cannot say what I believed--indeed I don't know to this day, and never shall probably. But what did the poordevil believe himself? Truth shall prevail--don't you know Magna est veritas el . . .Yes, when it gets a chance. There is a law, no doubt--and likewise a lawregulates your luck in the throwing of dice. It is not Justice the servant of men,but accident, hazard, Fortune--the ally of patient Time--that holds an even andscrupulous balance. Both of us had said the very same thing. Did we both speakthe truth--or one of us did--or neither? . . .'

Marlow paused, crossed his arms on his breast, and in a changed tone--

'She said we lied. Poor soul! Well--let's leave it to Chance, whose ally is Time,that cannot be hurried, and whose enemy is Death, that will not wait. I hadretreated--a little cowed, I must own. I had tried a fall with fear itself and gotthrown--of course. I had only succeeded in adding to her anguish the hint ofsome mysterious collusion, of an inexplicable and incomprehensible conspiracyto keep her for ever in the dark. And it had come easily, naturally, unavoidably,by his act, by her own act! It was as though I had been shown the working of theimplacable destiny of which we are the victims--and the tools. It was appalling tothink of the girl whom I had left standing there motionless; Jim's footsteps had afateful sound as he tramped by, without seeing me, in his heavy laced boots."What? No lights!" he said in a loud, surprised voice. "What are you doing in thedark--you two?" Next moment he caught sight of her, I suppose. "Hallo, girl!" hecried cheerily. "Hallo, boy!" she answered at once, with amazing pluck.

'This was their usual greeting to each other, and the bit of swagger she would putinto her rather high but sweet voice was very droll, pretty, and childlike. Itdelighted Jim greatly. This was the last occasion on which I heard themexchange this familiar hail, and it struck a chill into my heart. There was the highsweet voice, the pretty effort, the swagger; but it all seemed to die outprematurely, and the playful call sounded like a moan. It was too confoundedlyawful. "What have you done with Marlow?" Jim was asking; and then, "Gonedown--has he? Funny I didn't meet him. . . . You there, Marlow?"

'I didn't answer. I wasn't going in--not yet at any rate. I really couldn't. While hewas calling me I was engaged in making my escape through a little gate leadingout upon a stretch of newly cleared ground. No; I couldn't face them yet. I walkedhastily with lowered head along a trodden path. The ground rose gently, the fewbig trees had been felled, the undergrowth had been cut down and the grassfired. He had a mind to try a coffee-plantation there. The big hill, rearing itsdouble summit coal-black in the clear yellow glow of the rising moon, seemed tocast its shadow upon the ground prepared for that experiment. He was going totry ever so many experiments; I had admired his energy, his enterprise, and hisshrewdness. Nothing on earth seemed less real now than his plans, his energy,and his enthusiasm; and raising my eyes, I saw part of the moon glitteringthrough the bushes at the bottom of the chasm. For a moment it looked asthough the smooth disc, falling from its place in the sky upon the earth, had rolledto the bottom of that precipice: its ascending movement was like a leisurelyrebound; it disengaged itself from the tangle of twigs; the bare contorted limb ofsome tree, growing on the slope, made a black crack right across its face. Itthrew its level rays afar as if from a cavern, and in this mournful eclipse-like lightthe stumps of felled trees uprose very dark, the heavy shadows fell at my feet onall sides, my own moving shadow, and across my path the shadow of the solitarygrave perpetually garlanded with flowers. In the darkened moonlight theinterlaced blossoms took on shapes foreign to one's memory and coloursindefinable to the eye, as though they had been special flowers gathered by noman, grown not in this world, and destined for the use of the dead alone. Theirpowerful scent hung in the warm air, making it thick and heavy like the fumes ofincense. The lumps of white coral shone round the dark mound like a chaplet ofbleached skulls, and everything around was so quiet that when I stood still allsound and all movement in the world seemed to come to an end.

'It was a great peace, as if the earth had been one grave, and for a time I stoodthere thinking mostly of the living who, buried in remote places out of theknowledge of mankind, still are fated to share in its tragic or grotesque miseries.In its noble struggles too--who knows? The human heart is vast enough tocontain all the world. It is valiant enough to bear the burden, but where is thecourage that would cast it off?

'I suppose I must have fallen into a sentimental mood; I only know that I stoodthere long enough for the sense of utter solitude to get hold of me so completelythat all I had lately seen, all I had heard, and the very human speech itself,seemed to have passed away out of existence, living only for a while longer inmy memory, as though I had been the last of mankind. It was a strange andmelancholy illusion, evolved half-consciously like all our illusions, which I suspectonly to be visions of remote unattainable truth, seen dimly. This was, indeed, oneof the lost, forgotten, unknown places of the earth; I had looked under its obscuresurface; and I felt that when to-morrow I had left it for ever, it would slip out ofexistence, to live only in my memory till I myself passed into oblivion. I have thatfeeling about me now; perhaps it is that feeling which has incited me to tell youthe story, to try to hand over to you, as it were, its very existence, its reality--thetruth disclosed in a moment of illusion.

'Cornelius broke upon it. He bolted out, vermin-like, from the long grass growingin a depression of the ground. I believe his house was rotting somewhere nearby, though I've never seen it, not having been far enough in that direction. He rantowards me upon the path; his feet, shod in dirty white shoes, twinkled on thedark earth; he pulled himself up, and began to whine and cringe under a tallstove-pipe hat. His dried-up little carcass was swallowed up, totally lost, in a suitof black broadcloth. That was his costume for holidays and ceremonies, and itreminded me that this was the fourth Sunday I had spent in Patusan. All the timeof my stay I had been vaguely aware of his desire to confide in me, if he onlycould get me all to himself. He hung about with an eager craving look on his souryellow little face; but his timidity had kept him back as much as my naturalreluctance to have anything to do with such an unsavoury creature. He wouldhave succeeded, nevertheless, had he not been so ready to slink off as soon asyou looked at him. He would slink off before Jim's severe gaze, before my own,which I tried to make indifferent, even before Tamb' Itam's surly, superior glance.He was perpetually slinking away; whenever seen he was seen moving offdeviously, his face over his shoulder, with either a mistrustful snarl or a woe-begone, piteous, mute aspect; but no assumed expression could conceal thisinnate irremediable abjectness of his nature, any more than an arrangement ofclothing can conceal some monstrous deformity of the body.

'I don't know whether it was the demoralisation of my utter defeat in my

encounter with a spectre of fear less than an hour ago, but I let him capture mewithout even a show of resistance. I was doomed to be the recipient ofconfidences, and to be confronted with unanswerable questions. It was trying;but the contempt, the unreasoned contempt, the man's appearance provoked,made it easier to bear. He couldn't possibly matter. Nothing mattered, since I hadmade up my mind that Jim, for whom alone I cared, had at last mastered his fate.He had told me he was satisfied . . . nearly. This is going further than most of usdare. I--who have the right to think myself good enough--dare not. Neither doesany of you here, I suppose? . . .'

Marlow paused, as if expecting an answer. Nobody spoke.

'Quite right,' he began again. 'Let no soul know, since the truth can be wrung outof us only by some cruel, little, awful catastrophe. But he is one of us, and hecould say he was satisfied . . . nearly. Just fancy this! Nearly satisfied. One couldalmost envy him his catastrophe. Nearly satisfied. After this nothing could matter.It did not matter who suspected him, who trusted him, who loved him, who hatedhim--especially as it was Cornelius who hated him.'Yet after all this was a kind of recognition. You shall judge of a man by his foesas well as by his friends, and this enemy of Jim was such as no decent manwould be ashamed to own, without, however, making too much of him. This wasthe view Jim took, and in which I shared; but Jim disregarded him on generalgrounds. "My dear Marlow," he said, "I feel that if I go straight nothing can touchme. Indeed I do. Now you have been long enough here to have a good lookround--and, frankly, don't you think I am pretty safe? It all depends upon me, and,by Jove! I have lots of confidence in myself. The worst thing he could do wouldbe to kill me, I suppose. I don't think for a moment he would. He couldn't, youknow--not if I were myself to hand him a loaded rifle for the purpose, and thenturn my back on him. That's the sort of thing he is. And suppose he would--suppose he could? Well--what of that? I didn't come here flying for my life--did I?I came here to set my back against the wall, and I am going to stay here . . ."

' "Till you are quite satisfied," I struck in.

'We were sitting at the time under the roof in the stern of his boat; twenty paddlesflashed like one, ten on a side, striking the water with a single splash, whilebehind our backs Tamb' Itam dipped silently right and left, and stared right downthe river, attentive to keep the long canoe in the greatest strength of the current.Jim bowed his head, and our last talk seemed to flicker out for good. He wasseeing me off as far as the mouth of the river. The schooner had left the daybefore, working down and drifting on the ebb, while I had prolonged my stayovernight. And now he was seeing me off.

'Jim had been a little angry with me for mentioning Cornelius at all. I had not, intruth, said much. The man was too insignificant to be dangerous, though he wasas full of hate as he could hold. He had called me "honourable sir" at everysecond sentence, and had whined at my elbow as he followed me from the graveof his "late wife" to the gate of Jim's compound. He declared himself the mostunhappy of men, a victim, crushed like a worm; he entreated me to look at him. Iwouldn't turn my head to do so; but I could see out of the corner of my eye hisobsequious shadow gliding after mine, while the moon, suspended on our righthand, seemed to gloat serenely upon the spectacle. He tried to explain--as I'vetold you--his share in the events of the memorable night. It was a matter ofexpediency. How could he know who was going to get the upper hand? "I wouldhave saved him, honourable sir! I would have saved him for eighty dollars," heprotested in dulcet tones, keeping a pace behind me. "He has saved himself," Isaid, "and he has forgiven you." I heard a sort of tittering, and turned upon him;at once he appeared ready to take to his heels. "What are you laughing at?" Iasked, standing still. "Don't be deceived, honourable sir!" he shrieked, seeminglylosing all control over his feelings. "He save himself! He knows nothing,honourable sir--nothing whatever. Who is he? What does he want here--the bigthief? What does he want here? He throws dust into everybody's eyes; he throwsdust into your eyes, honourable sir; but he can't throw dust into my eyes. He is abig fool, honourable sir." I laughed contemptuously, and, turning on my heel,began to walk on again. He ran up to my elbow and whispered forcibly, "He's nomore than a little child here--like a little child--a little child." Of course I didn't takethe slightest notice, and seeing the time pressed, because we were approachingthe bamboo fence that glittered over the blackened ground of the clearing, hecame to the point. He commenced by being abjectly lachrymose. His greatmisfortunes had affected his head. He hoped I would kindly forget what nothingbut his troubles made him say. He didn't mean anything by it; only thehonourable sir did not know what it was to be ruined, broken down, trampledupon. After this introduction he approached the matter near his heart, but in sucha rambling, ejaculatory, craven fashion, that for a long time I couldn't make outwhat he was driving at. He wanted me to intercede with Jim in his favour. Itseemed, too, to be some sort of money affair. I heard time and again the words,"Moderate provision--suitable present." He seemed to be claiming value forsomething, and he even went the length of saying with some warmth that life wasnot worth having if a man were to be robbed of everything. I did not breathe aword, of course, but neither did I stop my ears. The gist of the affair, whichbecame clear to me gradually, was in this, that he regarded himself as entitled tosome money in exchange for the girl. He had brought her up. Somebody else'schild. Great trouble and pains--old man now--suitable present. If the honourablesir would say a word. . . . I stood still to look at him with curiosity, and fearful lest Ishould think him extortionate, I suppose, he hastily brought himself to make aconcession. In consideration of a "suitable present" given at once, he would, hedeclared, be willing to undertake the charge of the girl, "without any otherprovision--when the time came for the gentleman to go home." His little yellowface, all crumpled as though it had been squeezed together, expressed the mostanxious, eager avarice. His voice whined coaxingly, "No more trouble--naturalguardian--a sum of money . . ."

'I stood there and marvelled. That kind of thing, with him, was evidently avocation. I discovered suddenly in his cringing attitude a sort of assurance, asthough he had been all his life dealing in certitudes. He must have thought I wasdispassionately considering his proposal, because he became as sweet ashoney. "Every gentleman made a provision when the time came to go home," hebegan insinuatingly. I slammed the little gate. "In this case, Mr. Cornelius," I said,"the time will never come." He took a few seconds to gather this in. "What!" hefairly squealed. "Why," I continued from my side of the gate," haven't you heardhim say so himself? He will never go home." "Oh! this is too much," he shouted.He would not address me as "honoured sir" any more. He was very still for atime, and then without a trace of humility began very low: "Never go--ah! He--he--he comes here devil knows from where--comes here--devil knows why--totrample on me till I die--ah--trample" (he stamped softly with both feet), "tramplelike this--nobody knows why--till I die. . . ." His voice became quite extinct; hewas bothered by a little cough; he came up close to the fence and told me,dropping into a confidential and piteous tone, that he would not be trampledupon. "Patience-- patience," he muttered, striking his breast. I had done laughingat him, but unexpectedly he treated me to a wild cracked burst of it. "Ha! ha! ha!We shall see! We shall see! What! Steal from me! Steal from me everything!Everything! Everything!" His head drooped on one shoulder, his hands werehanging before him lightly clasped. One would have thought he had cherishedthe girl with surpassing love, that his spirit had been crushed and his heartbroken by the most cruel of spoliations. Suddenly he lifted his head and shot outan infamous word. "Like her mother--she is like her deceitful mother. Exactly. Inher face, too. In her face. The devil!" He leaned his forehead against the fence,and in that position uttered threats and horrible blasphemies in Portuguese invery weak ejaculations, mingled with miserable plaints and groans, coming outwith a heave of the shoulders as though he had been overtaken by a deadly fit ofsickness. It was an inexpressibly grotesque and vile performance, and I hastenedaway. He tried to shout something after me. Some disparagement of Jim, Ibelieve--not too loud though, we were too near the house. All I heard distinctlywas, "No more than a little child--a little child." ' Chapter 35

'But next morning, at the first bend of the river shutting off the houses of Patusan,all this dropped out of my sight bodily, with its colour, its design, and its meaning,like a picture created by fancy on a canvas, upon which, after longcontemplation, you turn your back for the last time. It remains in the memorymotionless, unfaded, with its life arrested, in an unchanging light. There are theambitions, the fears, the hate, the hopes, and they remain in my mind just as Ihad seen them--intense and as if for ever suspended in their expression. I hadturned away from the picture and was going back to the world where eventsmove, men change, light flickers, life flows in a clear stream, no matter whetherover mud or over stones. I wasn't going to dive into it; I would have enough to doto keep my head above the surface. But as to what I was leaving behind, I cannotimagine any alteration. The immense and magnanimous Doramin and his littlemotherly witch of a wife, gazing together upon the land and nursing secretly theirdreams of parental ambition; Tunku Allang, wizened and greatly perplexed; DainWaris, intelligent and brave, with his faith in Jim, with his firm glance and hisironic friendliness; the girl, absorbed in her frightened, suspicious adoration;Tamb' Itam, surly and faithful; Cornelius, leaning his forehead against the fenceunder the moonlight--I am certain of them. They exist as if under an enchanter'swand. But the figure round which all these are grouped--that one lives, and I amnot certain of him. No magician's wand can immobilise him under my eyes. He isone of us.

'Jim, as I've told you, accompanied me on the first stage of my journey back tothe world he had renounced, and the way at times seemed to lead through thevery heart of untouched wilderness. The empty reaches sparkled under the highsun; between the high walls of vegetation the heat drowsed upon the water, andthe boat, impelled vigorously, cut her way through the air that seemed to havesettled dense and warm under the shelter of lofty trees.

'The shadow of the impending separation had already put an immense spacebetween us, and when we spoke it was with an effort, as if to force our low voicesacross a vast and increasing distance. The boat fairly flew; we sweltered side byside in the stagnant superheated air; the smell of mud, of mush, the primevalsmell of fecund earth, seemed to sting our faces; till suddenly at a bend it was asif a great hand far away had lifted a heavy curtain, had flung open un immenseportal. The light itself seemed to stir, the sky above our heads widened, a far-offmurmur reached our ears, a freshness enveloped us, filled our lungs, quickenedour thoughts, our blood, our regrets--and, straight ahead, the forests sank downagainst the dark-blue ridge of the sea.

'I breathed deeply, I revelled in the vastness of the opened horizon, in thedifferent atmosphere that seemed to vibrate with the toil of life, with the energy ofan impeccable world. This sky and this sea were open to me. The girl was right--there was a sign, a call in them-- something to which I responded with every fibreof my being. I let my eyes roam through space, like a man released from bondswho stretches his cramped limbs, runs, leaps, responds to the inspiring elation offreedom. "This is glorious!" I cried, and then I looked at the sinner by my side. Hesat with his head sunk on his breast and said "Yes," without raising his eyes, as ifafraid to see writ large on the clear sky of the offing the reproach of his romanticconscience.

'I remember the smallest details of that afternoon. We landed on a bit of whitebeach. It was backed by a low cliff wooded on the brow, draped in creepers tothe very foot. Below us the plain of the sea, of a serene and intense blue,stretched with a slight upward tilt to the thread-like horizon drawn at the height ofour eyes. Great waves of glitter blew lightly along the pitted dark surface, as swiftas feathers chased by the breeze. A chain of islands sat broken and massivefacing the wide estuary, displayed in a sheet of pale glassy water reflectingfaithfully the contour of the shore. High in the colourless sunshine a solitary bird,all black, hovered, dropping and soaring above the same spot with a slightrocking motion of the wings. A ragged, sooty bunch of flimsy mat hovels wasperched over its own inverted image upon a crooked multitude of high piles thecolour of ebony. A tiny black canoe put off from amongst them with two tiny men,all black, who toiled exceedingly, striking down at the pale water: and the canoeseemed to slide painfully on a mirror. This bunch of miserable hovels was thefishing village that boasted of the white lord's especial protection, and the twomen crossing over were the old headman and his son-in-law. They landed andwalked up to us on the white sand, lean, dark-brown as if dried in smoke, withashy patches on the skin of their naked shoulders and breasts. Their heads werebound in dirty but carefully folded headkerchiefs, and the old man began at onceto state a complaint, voluble, stretching a lank arm, screwing up at Jim his oldbleared eyes confidently. The Rajah's people would not leave them alone; therehad been some trouble about a lot of turtles' eggs his people had collected on theislets there--and leaning at arm's-length upon his paddle, he pointed with a brownskinny hand over the sea. Jim listened for a time without looking up, and at lasttold him gently to wait. He would hear him by-and-by. They withdrew obedientlyto some little distance, and sat on their heels, with their paddles lying beforethem on the sand; the silvery gleams in their eyes followed our movementspatiently; and the immensity of the outspread sea, the stillness of the coast,passing north and south beyond the limits of my vision, made up one colossalPresence watching us four dwarfs isolated on a strip of glistening sand.

' "The trouble is," remarked Jim moodily, "that for generations these beggars offishermen in that village there had been considered as the Rajah's personalslaves--and the old rip can't get it into his head that . . ."

'He paused. "That you have changed all that," I said.

' "Yes I've changed all that," he muttered in a gloomy voice.

' "You have had your opportunity," I pursued.

' "Have I?" he said. "Well, yes. I suppose so. Yes. I have got back my confidencein myself--a good name--yet sometimes I wish . . . No! I shall hold what I've got.Can't expect anything more." He flung his arm out towards the sea. "Not outthere anyhow." He stamped his foot upon the sand. "This is my limit, becausenothing less will do."

'We continued pacing the beach. "Yes, I've changed all that," he went on, with asidelong glance at the two patient squatting fishermen; "but only try to think whatit would be if I went away. Jove! can't you see it? Hell loose. No! To-morrow Ishall go and take my chance of drinking that silly old Tunku Allang's coffee, and Ishall make no end of fuss over these rotten turtles' eggs. No. I can't say--enough.Never. I must go on, go on for ever holding up my end, to feel sure that nothingcan touch me. I must stick to their belief in me to feel safe and to--to" . . . He castabout for a word, seemed to look for it on the sea . . . "to keep in touch with" . . .His voice sank suddenly to a murmur . . . "with those whom, perhaps, I shallnever see any more. With--with--you, for instance."

'I was profoundly humbled by his words. "For God's sake," I said, "don't set meup, my dear fellow; just look to yourself." I felt a gratitude, an affection, for thatstraggler whose eyes had singled me out, keeping my place in the ranks of aninsignificant multitude. How little that was to boast of, after all! I turned myburning face away; under the low sun, glowing, darkened and crimson, like unember snatched from the fire, the sea lay outspread, offering all its immensestillness to the approach of the fiery orb. Twice he was going to speak, butchecked himself; at last, as if he had found a formula--

' "I shall be faithful," he said quietly. "I shall be faithful," he repeated, withoutlooking at me, but for the first time letting his eyes wander upon the waters,whose blueness had changed to a gloomy purple under the fires of sunset. Ah!he was romantic, romantic. I recalled some words of Stein's. . . . "In thedestructive element immerse! . . . To follow the dream, and again to follow thedream--and so--always--usque ad finem . . ." He was romantic, but none the lesstrue. Who could tell what forms, what visions, what faces, what forgiveness hecould see in the glow of the west! . . . A small boat, leaving the schooner, movedslowly, with a regular beat of two oars, towards the sandbank to take me off."And then there's Jewel," he said, out of the great silence of earth, sky, and sea,which had mastered my very thoughts so that his voice made me start. "There'sJewel." "Yes," I murmured. "I need not tell you what she is to me," he pursued."You've seen. In time she will come to understand . . ." "I hope so," I interrupted."She trusts me, too," he mused, and then changed his tone. "When shall wemeet next, I wonder?" he said.' "Never--unless you come out," I answered, avoiding his glance. He didn't seemto be surprised; he kept very quiet for a while.

' "Good-bye, then," he said, after a pause. "Perhaps it's just as well."

'We shook hands, and I walked to the boat, which waited with her nose on thebeach. The schooner, her mainsail set and jib-sheet to windward, curveted onthe purple sea; there was a rosy tinge on her sails. "Will you be going homeagain soon?" asked Jim, just as I swung my leg over the gunwale. "In a year orso if I live," I said. The forefoot grated on the sand, the boat floated, the wet oarsflashed and dipped once, twice. Jim, at the water's edge, raised his voice. "Tellthem . . ." he began. I signed to the men to cease rowing, and waited in wonder.Tell who? The half-submerged sun faced him; I could see its red gleam in hiseyes that looked dumbly at me. . . . "No-- nothing," he said, and with a slightwave of his hand motioned the boat away. I did not look again at the shore till Ihad clambered on board the schooner.

'By that time the sun had set. The twilight lay over the east, and the coast, turnedblack, extended infinitely its sombre wall that seemed the very stronghold of thenight; the western horizon was one great blaze of gold and crimson in which abig detached cloud floated dark and still, casting a slaty shadow on the waterbeneath, and I saw Jim on the beach watching the schooner fall off and gatherheadway.

'The two half-naked fishermen had arisen as soon as I had gone; they were nodoubt pouring the plaint of their trifling, miserable, oppressed lives into the earsof the white lord, and no doubt he was listening to it, making it his own, for was itnot a part of his luck--the luck "from the word Go"--the luck to which he hadassured me he was so completely equal? They, too, I should think, were in luck,and I was sure their pertinacity would be equal to it. Their dark-skinned bodiesvanished on the dark background long before I had lost sight of their protector.He was white from head to foot, and remained persistently visible with thestronghold of the night at his back, the sea at his feet, the opportunity by his side--still veiled. What do you say? Was it still veiled? I don't know. For me that whitefigure in the stillness of coast and sea seemed to stand at the heart of a vastenigma. The twilight was ebbing fast from the sky above his head, the strip ofsand had sunk already under his feet, he himself appeared no bigger than achild--then only a speck, a tiny white speck, that seemed to catch all the light leftin a darkened world. . . . And, suddenly, I lost him. . . . Chapter 36

With these words Marlow had ended his narrative, and his audience had brokenup forthwith, under his abstract, pensive gaze. Men drifted off the verandah inpairs or alone without loss of time, without offering a remark, as if the last imageof that incomplete story, its incompleteness itself, and the very tone of thespeaker, had made discussion in vain and comment impossible. Each of themseemed to carry away his own impression, to carry it away with him like a secret;but there was only one man of all these listeners who was ever to hear the lastword of the story. It came to him at home, more than two years later, and it camecontained in a thick packet addressed in Marlow's upright and angularhandwriting.

The privileged man opened the packet, looked in, then, laying it down, went tothe window. His rooms were in the highest flat of a lofty building, and his glancecould travel afar beyond the clear panes of glass, as though he were looking outof the lantern of a lighthouse. The slopes of the roofs glistened, the dark brokenridges succeeded each other without end like sombre, uncrested waves, andfrom the depths of the town under his feet ascended a confused and unceasingmutter. The spires of churches, numerous, scattered haphazard, uprose likebeacons on a maze of shoals without a channel; the driving rain mingled with thefalling dusk of a winter's evening; and the booming of a big clock on a tower,striking the hour, rolled past in voluminous, austere bursts of sound, with a shrillvibrating cry at the core. He drew the heavy curtains.

The light of his shaded reading-lamp slept like a sheltered pool, his footfallsmade no sound on the carpet, his wandering days were over. No more horizonsas boundless as hope, no more twilights within the forests as solemn as temples,in the hot quest for the Ever-undiscovered Country over the hill, across thestream, beyond the wave. The hour was striking! No more! No more!--but theopened packet under the lamp brought back the sounds, the visions, the verysavour of the past--a multitude of fading faces, a tumult of low voices, dying awayupon the shores of distant seas under a passionate and unconsoling sunshine.He sighed and sat down to read.

At first he saw three distinct enclosures. A good many pages closely blackenedand pinned together; a loose square sheet of greyish paper with a few wordstraced in a handwriting he had never seen before, and an explanatory letter fromMarlow. From this last fell another letter, yellowed by time and frayed on thefolds. He picked it up and, laying it aside, turned to Marlow's message, ran swiftlyover the opening lines, and, checking himself, thereafter read on deliberately, likeone approaching with slow feet and alert eyes the glimpse of an undiscoveredcountry.'. . . I don't suppose you've forgotten,' went on the letter. 'You alone have showedan interest in him that survived the telling of his story, though I remember wellyou would not admit he had mastered his fate. You prophesied for him thedisaster of weariness and of disgust with acquired honour, with the self-appointed task, with the love sprung from pity and youth. You had said you knewso well "that kind of thing," its illusory satisfaction, its unavoidable deception. Yousaid also--I call to mind--that "giving your life up to them" (them meaning all ofmankind with skins brown, yellow, or black in colour) "was like selling your soul toa brute." You contended that "that kind of thing" was only endurable andenduring when based on a firm conviction in the truth of ideas racially our own, inwhose name are established the order, the morality of an ethical progress. "Wewant its strength at our backs," you had said. "We want a belief in its necessityand its justice, to make a worthy and conscious sacrifice of our lives. Without itthe sacrifice is only forgetfulness, the way of offering is no better than the way toperdition." In other words, you maintained that we must fight in the ranks or ourlives don't count. Possibly! You ought to know--be it said without malice--you whohave rushed into one or two places single-handed and came out cleverly, withoutsingeing your wings. The point, however, is that of all mankind Jim had nodealings but with himself, and the question is whether at the last he had notconfessed to a faith mightier than the laws of order and progress.

'I affirm nothing. Perhaps you may pronounce--after you've read. There ismuch truth--after all--in the common expression "under a cloud." It is impossibleto see him clearly--especially as it is through the eyes of others that we take ourlast look at him. I have no hesitation in imparting to you all I know of the lastepisode that, as he used to say, had "come to him." One wonders whether thiswas perhaps that supreme opportunity, that last and satisfying test for which Ihad always suspected him to be waiting, before he could frame a message to theimpeccable world. You remember that when I was leaving him for the last time hehad asked whether I would be going home soon, and suddenly cried after me,"Tell them . . ." I had waited--curious I'll own, and hopeful too--only to hear himshout, "No--nothing." That was all then--and there will be nothing more; there willbe no message, unless such as each of us can interpret for himself from thelanguage of facts, that are so often more enigmatic than the craftiestarrangement of words. He made, it is true, one more attempt to deliver himself;but that too failed, as you may perceive if you look at the sheet of greyishfoolscap enclosed here. He had tried to write; do you notice the commonplacehand? It is headed "The Fort, Patusan." I suppose he had carried out hisintention of making out of his house a place of defence. It was an excellent plan:a deep ditch, an earth wall topped by a palisade, and at the angles gunsmounted on platforms to sweep each side of the square. Doramin had agreed tofurnish him the guns; and so each man of his party would know there was aplace of safety, upon which every faithful partisan could rally in case of somesudden danger. All this showed his judicious foresight, his faith in the future.What he called "my own people"--the liberated captives of the Sherif--were tomake a distinct quarter of Patusan, with their huts and little plots of ground underthe walls of the stronghold. Within he would be an invincible host in himself "TheFort, Patusan." No date, as you observe. What is a number and a name to a dayof days? It is also impossible to say whom he had in his mind when he seized thepen: Stein--myself--the world at large--or was this only the aimless startled cry ofa solitary man confronted by his fate? "An awful thing has happened," he wrotebefore he flung the pen down for the first time; look at the ink blot resembling thehead of an arrow under these words. After a while he had tried again, scrawlingheavily, as if with a hand of lead, another line. "I must now at once . . ." The penhad spluttered, and that time he gave it up. There's nothing more; he had seen abroad gulf that neither eye nor voice could span. I can understand this. He wasoverwhelmed by the inexplicable; he was overwhelmed by his own personality--the gift of that destiny which he had done his best to master.

'I send you also an old letter--a very old letter. It was found carefully preserved inhis writing-case. It is from his father, and by the date you can see he must havereceived it a few days before he joined the Patna. Thus it must be the last letterhe ever had from home. He had treasured it all these years. The good old parsonfancied his sailor son. I've looked in at a sentence here and there. There isnothing in it except just affection. He tells his "dear James" that the last longletter from him was very "honest and entertaining." He would not have him "judgemen harshly or hastily." There are four pages of it, easy morality and familynews. Tom had "taken orders." Carrie's husband had "money losses." The oldchap goes on equably trusting Providence and the established order of theuniverse, but alive to its small dangers and its small mercies. One can almostsee him, grey-haired and serene in the inviolable shelter of his book-lined, faded,and comfortable study, where for forty years he had conscientiously gone overand over again the round of his little thoughts about faith and virtue, about theconduct of life and the only proper manner of dying; where he had written somany sermons, where he sits talking to his boy, over there, on the other side ofthe earth. But what of the distance? Virtue is one all over the world, and there isonly one faith, one conceivable conduct of life, one manner of dying. He hopeshis "dear James" will never forget that "who once gives way to temptation, in thevery instant hazards his total depravity and everlasting ruin. Therefore resolvefixedly never, through any possible motives, to do anything which you believe tobe wrong." There is also some news of a favourite dog; and a pony, "which allyou boys used to ride," had gone blind from old age and had to be shot. The oldchap invokes Heaven's blessing; the mother and all the girls then at home sendtheir love. . . . No, there is nothing much in that yellow frayed letter fluttering outof his cherishing grasp after so many years. It was never answered, but who cansay what converse he may have held with all these placid, colourless forms ofmen and women peopling that quiet corner of the world as free of danger or strifeas a tomb, and breathing equably the air of undisturbed rectitude. It seemsamazing that he should belong to it, he to whom so many things "had come."Nothing ever came to them; they would never be taken unawares, and never becalled upon to grapple with fate. Here they all are, evoked by the mild gossip ofthe father, all these brothers and sisters, bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh,gazing with clear unconscious eyes, while I seem to see him, returned at last, nolonger a mere white speck at the heart of an immense mystery, but of full stature,standing disregarded amongst their untroubled shapes, with a stern and romanticaspect, but always mute, dark--under a cloud.

'The story of the last events you will find in the few pages enclosed here. Youmust admit that it is romantic beyond the wildest dreams of his boyhood, and yetthere is to my mind a sort of profound and terrifying logic in it, as if it were ourimagination alone that could set loose upon us the might of an overwhelmingdestiny. The imprudence of our thoughts recoils upon our heads; who toys withthe sword shall perish by the sword. This astounding adventure, of which themost astounding part is that it is true, comes on as an unavoidable consequence.Something of the sort had to happen. You repeat this to yourself while youmarvel that such a thing could happen in the year of grace before last. But it hashappened--and there is no disputing its logic.

'I put it down here for you as though I had been an eyewitness. My informationwas fragmentary, but I've fitted the pieces together, and there is enough of themto make an intelligible picture. I wonder how he would have related it himself. Hehas confided so much in me that at times it seems as though he must come inpresently and tell the story in his own words, in his careless yet feeling voice,with his offhand manner, a little puzzled, a little bothered, a little hurt, but nowand then by a word or a phrase giving one of these glimpses of his very own selfthat were never any good for purposes of orientation. It's difficult to believe he willnever come. I shall never hear his voice again, nor shall I see his smooth tan-and-pink face with a white line on the forehead, and the youthful eyes darkenedby excitement to a profound, unfathomable blue.' Chapter 37

'It all begins with a remarkable exploit of a man called Brown, who stole withcomplete success a Spanish schooner out of a small bay near Zamboanga. Till Idiscovered the fellow my information was incomplete, but most unexpectedly Idid come upon him a few hours before he gave up his arrogant ghost.Fortunately he was willing and able to talk between the choking fits of asthma,and his racked body writhed with malicious exultation at the bare thought of Jim.He exulted thus at the idea that he had "paid out the stuck-up beggar after all."He gloated over his action. I had to bear the sunken glare of his fierce crow-footed eyes if I wanted to know; and so I bore it, reflecting how much certainforms of evil are akin to madness, derived from intense egoism, inflamed byresistance, tearing the soul to pieces, and giving factitious vigour to the body.The story also reveals unsuspected depths of cunning in the wretched Cornelius,whose abject and intense hate acts like a subtle inspiration, pointing out anunerring way towards revenge.

' "I could see directly I set my eyes on him what sort of a fool he was," gaspedthe dying Brown. "He a man! Hell! He was a hollow sham. As if he couldn't havesaid straight out, 'Hands off my plunder!' blast him! That would have been like aman! Rot his superior soul! He had me there--but he hadn't devil enough in himto make an end of me. Not he! A thing like that letting me off as if I wasn't worth akick! . . ." Brown struggled desperately for breath. . . . "Fraud. . . . Letting me off. .. . And so I did make an end of him after all. . . ." He choked again. . . . "I expectthis thing'll kill me, but I shall die easy now. You . . . you here . . . I don't knowyour name--I would give you a five-pound note if--if I had it--for the news--or myname's not Brown. . . ." He grinned horribly. . . . "Gentleman Brown."

'He said all these things in profound gasps, staring at me with his yellow eyes outof a long, ravaged, brown face; he jerked his left arm; a pepper-and-salt mattedbeard hung almost into his lap; a dirty ragged blanket covered his legs. I hadfound him out in Bankok through that busybody Schomberg, the hotel-keeper,who had, confidentially, directed me where to look. It appears that a sort ofloafing, fuddled vagabond--a white man living amongst the natives with aSiamese woman--had considered it a great privilege to give a shelter to the lastdays of the famous Gentleman Brown. While he was talking to me in thewretched hovel, and, as it were, fighting for every minute of his life, the Siamesewoman, with big bare legs and a stupid coarse face, sat in a dark corner chewingbetel stolidly. Now and then she would get up for the purpose of shooing achicken away from the door. The whole hut shook when she walked. An uglyyellow child, naked and pot-bellied like a little heathen god, stood at the foot ofthe couch, finger in mouth, lost in a profound and calm contemplation of thedying man.'He talked feverishly; but in the middle of a word, perhaps, an invisible handwould take him by the throat, and he would look at me dumbly with an expressionof doubt and anguish. He seemed to fear that I would get tired of waiting and goaway, leaving him with his tale untold, with his exultation unexpressed. He diedduring the night, I believe, but by that time I had nothing more to learn.

'So much as to Brown, for the present.

'Eight months before this, coming into Samarang, I went as usual to see Stein.On the garden side of the house a Malay on the verandah greeted me shyly, andI remembered that I had seen him in Patusan, in Jim's house, amongst otherBugis men who used to come in the evening to talk interminably over their warreminiscences and to discuss State affairs. Jim had pointed him out to me onceas a respectable petty trader owning a small seagoing native craft, who hadshowed himself "one of the best at the taking of the stockade." I was not verysurprised to see him, since any Patusan trader venturing as far as Samarangwould naturally find his way to Stein's house. I returned his greeting and passedon. At the door of Stein's room I came upon another Malay in whom I recognisedTamb' Itam.

'I asked him at once what he was doing there; it occurred to me that Jim mighthave come on a visit. I own I was pleased and excited at the thought. Tamb' Itamlooked as if he did not know what to say. "Is Tuan Jim inside?" I askedimpatiently. "No," he mumbled, hanging his head for a moment, and then withsudden earnestness, "He would not fight. He would not fight," he repeated twice.As he seemed unable to say anything else, I pushed him aside and went in,

'Stein, tall and stooping, stood alone in the middle of the room between the rowsof butterfly cases. "Ach! is it you, my friend?" he said sadly, peering through hisglasses. A drab sack-coat of alpaca hung, unbuttoned, down to his knees. Hehad a Panama hat on his head, and there were deep furrows on his pale cheeks."What's the matter now?" I asked nervously. "There's Tamb' Itam there. . . .""Come and see the girl. Come and see the girl. She is here," he said, with a half-hearted show of activity. I tried to detain him, but with gentle obstinacy he wouldtake no notice of my eager questions. "She is here, she is here," he repeated, ingreat perturbation. "They came here two days ago. An old man like me, astranger--sehen Sie--cannot do much. . . . Come this way. . . . Young hearts areunforgiving. . . ." I could see he was in utmost distress. . . . "The strength of life inthem, the cruel strength of life. . . ." He mumbled, leading me round the house; Ifollowed him, lost in dismal and angry conjectures. At the door of the drawing-room he barred my way. "He loved her very much," he said interrogatively, and Ionly nodded, feeling so bitterly disappointed that I would not trust myself tospeak. "Very frightful," he murmured. "She can't understand me. I am only astrange old man. Perhaps you . . . she knows you. Talk to her. We can't leave itlike this. Tell her to forgive him. It was very frightful." "No doubt," I said,exasperated at being in the dark; "but have you forgiven him?" He looked at mequeerly. "You shall hear," he said, and opening the door, absolutely pushed mein.

'You know Stein's big house and the two immense reception-rooms, uninhabitedand uninhabitable, clean, full of solitude and of shining things that look as if neverbeheld by the eye of man? They are cool on the hottest days, and you enterthem as you would a scrubbed cave underground. I passed through one, and inthe other I saw the girl sitting at the end of a big mahogany table, on which sherested her head, the face hidden in her arms. The waxed floor reflected her dimlyas though it had been a sheet of frozen water. The rattan screens were down,and through the strange greenish gloom made by the foliage of the trees outsidea strong wind blew in gusts, swaying the long draperies of windows anddoorways. Her white figure seemed shaped in snow; the pendent crystals of agreat chandelier clicked above her head like glittering icicles. She looked up andwatched my approach. I was chilled as if these vast apartments had been thecold abode of despair.

'She recognised me at once, and as soon as I had stopped, looking down at her:"He has left me," she said quietly; "you always leave us--for your own ends." Herface was set. All the heat of life seemed withdrawn within some inaccessible spotin her breast. "It would have been easy to die with him," she went on, and madea slight weary gesture as if giving up the incomprehensible. "He would not! It waslike a blindness--and yet it was I who was speaking to him; it was I who stoodbefore his eyes; it was at me that he looked all the time! Ah! you are hard,treacherous, without truth, without compassion. What makes you so wicked? Oris it that you are all mad?"

'I took her hand; it did not respond, and when I dropped it, it hung down to thefloor. That indifference, more awful than tears, cries, and reproaches, seemed todefy time and consolation. You felt that nothing you could say would reach theseat of the still and benumbing pain.

'Stein had said, "You shall hear." I did hear. I heard it all, listening withamazement, with awe, to the tones of her inflexible weariness. She could notgrasp the real sense of what she was telling me, and her resentment filled mewith pity for her--for him too. I stood rooted to the spot after she had finished.Leaning on her arm, she stared with hard eyes, and the wind passed in gusts,the crystals kept on clicking in the greenish gloom. She went on whispering toherself: "And yet he was looking at me! He could see my face, hear my voice,hear my grief! When I used to sit at his feet, with my cheek against his knee andhis hand on my head, the curse of cruelty and madness was already within him,waiting for the day. The day came! . . . and before the sun had set he could notsee me any more--he was made blind and deaf and without pity, as you all are.He shall have no tears from me. Never, never. Not one tear. I will not! He wentaway from me as if I had been worse than death. He fled as if driven by someaccursed thing he had heard or seen in his sleep. . . ."'Her steady eyes seemed to strain after the shape of a man torn out of her armsby the strength of a dream. She made no sign to my silent bow. I was glad toescape.

'I saw her once again, the same afternoon. On leaving her I had gone in searchof Stein, whom I could not find indoors; and I wandered out, pursued bydistressful thoughts, into the gardens, those famous gardens of Stein, in whichyou can find every plant and tree of tropical lowlands. I followed the course of thecanalised stream, and sat for a long time on a shaded bench near theornamental pond, where some waterfowl with clipped wings were diving andsplashing noisily. The branches of casuarina trees behind me swayed lightly,incessantly, reminding me of the soughing of fir trees at home.

'This mournful and restless sound was a fit accompaniment to my meditations.

She had said he had been driven away from her by a dream,--and there was noanswer one could make her--there seemed to be no forgiveness for such atransgression. And yet is not mankind itself, pushing on its blind way, driven by adream of its greatness and its power upon the dark paths of excessive crueltyand of excessive devotion? And what is the pursuit of truth, after all?

'When I rose to get back to the house I caught sight of Stein's drab coat througha gap in the foliage, and very soon at a turn of the path I came upon him walkingwith the girl. Her little hand rested on his forearm, and under the broad, flat rim ofhis Panama hat he bent over her, grey-haired, paternal, with compassionate andchivalrous deference. I stood aside, but they stopped, facing me. His gaze wasbent on the ground at his feet; the girl, erect and slight on his arm, staredsombrely beyond my shoulder with black, clear, motionless eyes. "Schrecklich,"he murmured. "Terrible! Terrible! What can one do?" He seemed to be appealingto me, but her youth, the length of the days suspended over her head, appealedto me more; and suddenly, even as I realised that nothing could be said, I foundmyself pleading his cause for her sake. "You must forgive him," I concluded, andmy own voice seemed to me muffled, lost in un irresponsive deaf immensity. "Weall want to be forgiven," I added after a while.

' "What have I done?" she asked with her lips only.

' "You always mistrusted him," I said.

' "He was like the others," she pronounced slowly.

' "Not like the others," I protested, but she continued evenly, without any feeling--

'I watched them. Her gown trailed on the path, her black hair fell loose. Shewalked upright and light by the side of the tall man, whose long shapeless coathung in perpendicular folds from the stooping shoulders, whose feet movedslowly. They disappeared beyond that spinney (you may remember) wheresixteen different kinds of bamboo grow together, all distinguishable to the learnedeye. For my part, I was fascinated by the exquisite grace and beauty of thatfluted grove, crowned with pointed leaves and feathery heads, the lightness, thevigour, the charm as distinct as a voice of that unperplexed luxuriating life. Iremember staying to look at it for a long time, as one would linger within reach ofa consoling whisper. The sky was pearly grey. It was one of those overcast daysso rare in the tropics, in which memories crowd upon one, memories of othershores, of other faces.

'I drove back to town the same afternoon, taking with me Tamb' Itam and theother Malay, in whose seagoing craft they had escaped in the bewilderment, fear,and gloom of the disaster. The shock of it seemed to have changed their natures.It had turned her passion into stone, and it made the surly taciturn Tamb' Itamalmost loquacious. His surliness, too, was subdued into puzzled humility, asthough he had seen the failure of a potent charm in a supreme moment. TheBugis trader, a shy hesitating man, was very clear in the little he had to say. Bothwere evidently over-awed by a sense of deep inexpressible wonder, by the touchof an inscrutable mystery.'

There with Marlow's signature the letter proper ended. The privileged readerscrewed up his lamp, and solitary above the billowy roofs of the town, like alighthouse-keeper above the sea, he turned to the pages of the story. Chapter 38

'It all begins, as I've told you, with the man called Brown,' ran the openingsentence of Marlow's narrative. 'You who have knocked about the WesternPacific must have heard of him. He was the show ruffian on the Australian coast--not that he was often to be seen there, but because he was always trotted out inthe stories of lawless life a visitor from home is treated to; and the mildest ofthese stories which were told about him from Cape York to Eden Bay was morethan enough to hang a man if told in the right place. They never failed to let youknow, too, that he was supposed to be the son of a baronet. Be it as it may, it iscertain he had deserted from a home ship in the early gold-digging days, and in afew years became talked about as the terror of this or that group of islands inPolynesia. He would kidnap natives, he would strip some lonely white trader tothe very pyjamas he stood in, and after he had robbed the poor devil, he wouldas likely as not invite him to fight a duel with shot-guns on the beach--whichwould have been fair enough as these things go, if the other man hadn't been bythat time already half-dead with fright. Brown was a latter-day buccaneer, sorryenough, like his more celebrated prototypes; but what distinguished him from hiscontemporary brother ruffians, like Bully Hayes or the mellifluous Pease, or thatperfumed, Dundreary-whiskered, dandified scoundrel known as Dirty Dick, wasthe arrogant temper of his misdeeds and a vehement scorn for mankind at largeand for his victims in particular. The others were merely vulgar and greedybrutes, but he seemed moved by some complex intention. He would rob a manas if only to demonstrate his poor opinion of the creature, and he would bring tothe shooting or maiming of some quiet, unoffending stranger a savage andvengeful earnestness fit to terrify the most reckless of desperadoes. In the daysof his greatest glory he owned an armed barque, manned by a mixed crew ofKanakas and runaway whalers, and boasted, I don't know with what truth, ofbeing financed on the quiet by a most respectable firm of copra merchants. Lateron he ran off--it was reported--with the wife of a missionary, a very young girlfrom Clapham way, who had married the mild, flat-footed fellow in a moment ofenthusiasm, and, suddenly transplanted to Melanesia, lost her bearingssomehow. It was a dark story. She was ill at the time he carried her off, and diedon board his ship. It is said--as the most wonderful put of the tale--that over herbody he gave way to an outburst of sombre and violent grief. His luck left him,too, very soon after. He lost his ship on some rocks off Malaita, and disappearedfor a time as though he had gone down with her. He is heard of next at Nuka-Hiva, where he bought an old French schooner out of Government service. Whatcreditable enterprise he might have had in view when he made that purchase Ican't say, but it is evident that what with High Commissioners, consuls, men-of-war, and international control, the South Seas were getting too hot to holdgentlemen of his kidney. Clearly he must have shifted the scene of his operationsfarther west, because a year later he plays an incredibly audacious, but not avery profitable part, in a serio-comic business in Manila Bay, in which apeculating governor and an absconding treasurer are the principal figures;thereafter he seems to have hung around the Philippines in his rotten schoonerbattling with un adverse fortune, till at last, running his appointed course, he sailsinto Jim's history, a blind accomplice of the Dark Powers.

'His tale goes that when a Spanish patrol cutter captured him he was simplytrying to run a few guns for the insurgents. If so, then I can't understand what hewas doing off the south coast of Mindanao. My belief, however, is that he wasblackmailing the native villages along the coast. The principal thing is that thecutter, throwing a guard on board, made him sail in company towardsZamboanga. On the way, for some reason or other, both vessels had to call atone of these new Spanish settlements--which never came to anything in the end--where there was not only a civil official in charge on shore, but a good stoutcoasting schooner lying at anchor in the little bay; and this craft, in every waymuch better than his own, Brown made up his mind to steal.

'He was down on his luck--as he told me himself. The world he had bullied fortwenty years with fierce, aggressive disdain, had yielded him nothing in the wayof material advantage except a small bag of silver dollars, which was concealedin his cabin so that "the devil himself couldn't smell it out." And that was all--absolutely all. He was tired of his life, and not afraid of death. But this man, whowould stake his existence on a whim with a bitter and jeering recklessness, stoodin mortal fear of imprisonment. He had an unreasoning cold-sweat, nerve-shaking, blood-to-water-turning sort of horror at the bare possibility of beinglocked up--the sort of terror a superstitious man would feel at the thought ofbeing embraced by a spectre. Therefore the civil official who came on board tomake a preliminary investigation into the capture, investigated arduously all daylong, and only went ashore after dark, muffled up in a cloak, and taking greatcare not to let Brown's little all clink in its bag. Afterwards, being a man of hisword, he contrived (the very next evening, I believe) to send off the Governmentcutter on some urgent bit of special service. As her commander could not spare aprize crew, he contented himself by taking away before he left all the sails ofBrown's schooner to the very last rag, and took good care to tow his two boats onto the beach a couple of miles off.

'But in Brown's crew there was a Solomon Islander, kidnapped in his youth anddevoted to Brown, who was the best man of the whole gang. That fellow swamoff to the coaster--five hundred yards or so--with the end of a warp made up of allthe running gear unrove for the purpose. The water was smooth, and the baydark, "like the inside of a cow," as Brown described it. The Solomon Islanderclambered over the bulwarks with the end of the rope in his teeth. The crew ofthe coaster--all Tagals--were ashore having a jollification in the native village.The two shipkeepers left on board woke up suddenly and saw the devil. It hadglittering eyes and leaped quick as lightning about the deck. They fell on theirknees, paralysed with fear, crossing themselves and mumbling prayers. With along knife he found in the caboose the Solomon Islander, without interruptingtheir orisons, stabbed first one, then the other; with the same knife he set tosawing patiently at the coir cable till suddenly it parted under the blade with asplash. Then in the silence of the bay he let out a cautious shout, and Brown'sgang, who meantime had been peering and straining their hopeful ears in thedarkness, began to pull gently at their end of the warp. In less than five minutesthe two schooners came together with a slight shock and a creak of spars.

'Brown's crowd transferred themselves without losing an instant, taking with themtheir firearms and a large supply of ammunition. They were sixteen in all: tworunaway blue-jackets, a lanky deserter from a Yankee man-of-war, a couple ofsimple, blond Scandinavians, a mulatto of sorts, one bland Chinaman whocooked--and the rest of the nondescript spawn of the South Seas. None of themcared; Brown bent them to his will, and Brown, indifferent to gallows, was runningaway from the spectre of a Spanish prison. He didn't give them the time to trans-ship enough provisions; the weather was calm, the air was charged with dew,and when they cast off the ropes and set sail to a faint off-shore draught therewas no flutter in the damp canvas; their old schooner seemed to detach itselfgently from the stolen craft and slip away silently, together with the black mass ofthe coast, into the night.

'They got clear away. Brown related to me in detail their passage down theStraits of Macassar. It is a harrowing and desperate story. They were short offood and water; they boarded several native craft and got a little from each. Witha stolen ship Brown did not dare to put into any port, of course. He had no moneyto buy anything, no papers to show, and no lie plausible enough to get him outagain. An Arab barque, under the Dutch flag, surprised one night at anchor offPoulo Laut, yielded a little dirty rice, a bunch of bananas, and a cask of water;three days of squally, misty weather from the north-east shot the schooneracross the Java Sea. The yellow muddy waves drenched that collection ofhungry ruffians. They sighted mail-boats moving on their appointed routes;passed well-found home ships with rusty iron sides anchored in the shallow seawaiting for a change of weather or the turn of the tide; an English gunboat, whiteand trim, with two slim masts, crossed their bows one day in the distance; and onanother occasion a Dutch corvette, black and heavily sparred, loomed up on theirquarter, steaming dead slow in the mist. They slipped through unseen ordisregarded, a wan, sallow-faced band of utter outcasts, enraged with hungerand hunted by fear. Brown's idea was to make for Madagascar, where heexpected, on grounds not altogether illusory, to sell the schooner in Tamatave,and no questions asked, or perhaps obtain some more or less forged papers forher. Yet before he could face the long passage across the Indian Ocean foodwas wanted--water too.

'Perhaps he had heard of Patusan--or perhaps he just only happened to see thename written in small letters on the chart--probably that of a largish village up ariver in a native state, perfectly defenceless, far from the beaten tracks of the seaand from the ends of submarine cables. He had done that kind of thing before--inthe way of business; and this now was an absolute necessity, a question of lifeand death--or rather of liberty. Of liberty! He was sure to get provisions--bullocks-- rice--sweet-potatoes. The sorry gang licked their chops. A cargo of produce forthe schooner perhaps could be extorted--and, who knows?--some real ringingcoined money! Some of these chiefs and village headmen can be made to partfreely. He told me he would have roasted their toes rather than be baulked. Ibelieve him. His men believed him too. They didn't cheer aloud, being a dumbpack, but made ready wolfishly.

'Luck served him as to weather. A few days of calm would have broughtunmentionable horrors on board that schooner, but with the help of land and seabreezes, in less than a week after clearing the Sunda Straits, he anchored off theBatu Kring mouth within a pistol-shot of the fishing village.

'Fourteen of them packed into the schooner's long-boat (which was big, havingbeen used for cargo-work) and started up the river, while two remained in chargeof the schooner with food enough to keep starvation off for ten days. The tide andwind helped, and early one afternoon the big white boat under a ragged sailshouldered its way before the sea breeze into Patusan Reach, manned byfourteen assorted scarecrows glaring hungrily ahead, and fingering the breech-blocks of cheap rifles. Brown calculated upon the terrifying surprise of hisappearance. They sailed in with the last of the flood; the Rajah's stockade gaveno sign; the first houses on both sides of the stream seemed deserted. A fewcanoes were seen up the reach in full flight. Brown was astonished at the size ofthe place. A profound silence reigned. The wind dropped between the houses;two oars were got out and the boat held on up-stream, the idea being to effect alodgment in the centre of the town before the inhabitants could think ofresistance.

'It seems, however, that the headman of the fishing village at Batu Kring hadmanaged to send off a timely warning. When the long-boat came abreast of themosque (which Doramin had built: a structure with gables and roof finials ofcarved coral) the open space before it was full of people. A shout went up, andwas followed by a clash of gongs all up the river. From a point above two littlebrass 6-pounders were discharged, and the round-shot came skipping down theempty reach, spurting glittering jets of water in the sunshine. In front of themosque a shouting lot of men began firing in volleys that whipped athwart thecurrent of the river; an irregular, rolling fusillade was opened on the boat fromboth banks, and Brown's men replied with a wild, rapid fire. The oars had beengot in.

'The turn of the tide at high water comes on very quickly in that river, and theboat in mid-stream, nearly hidden in smoke, began to drift back stern foremost.Along both shores the smoke thickened also, lying below the roofs in a levelstreak as you may see a long cloud cutting the slope of a mountain. A tumult ofwar-cries, the vibrating clang of gongs, the deep snoring of drums, yells of rage,crashes of volley-firing, made an awful din, in which Brown sat confounded butsteady at the tiller, working himself into a fury of hate and rage against thosepeople who dared to defend themselves. Two of his men had been wounded,and he saw his retreat cut off below the town by some boats that had put off fromTunku Allang's stockade. There were six of them, full of men. While he was thusbeset he perceived the entrance of the narrow creek (the same which Jim hadjumped at low water). It was then brim full. Steering the long-boat in, they landed,and, to make a long story short, they established themselves on a little knollabout 900 yards from the stockade, which, in fact, they commanded from thatposition. The slopes of the knoll were bare, but there were a few trees on thesummit. They went to work cutting these down for a breastwork, and were fairlyintrenched before dark; meantime the Rajah's boats remained in the river withcurious neutrality. When the sun set the glue of many brushwood blazes lightedon the river-front, and between the double line of houses on the land side threwinto black relief the roofs, the groups of slender palms, the heavy clumps of fruittrees. Brown ordered the grass round his position to be fired; a low ring of thinflames under the slow ascending smoke wriggled rapidly down the slopes of theknoll; here and there a dry bush caught with a tall, vicious roar. The conflagrationmade a clear zone of fire for the rifles of the small party, and expired smoulderingon the edge of the forests and along the muddy bank of the creek. A strip ofjungle luxuriating in a damp hollow between the knoll and the Rajah's stockadestopped it on that side with a great crackling and detonations of bursting bamboostems. The sky was sombre, velvety, and swarming with stars. The blackenedground smoked quietly with low creeping wisps, till a little breeze came on andblew everything away. Brown expected an attack to be delivered as soon as thetide had flowed enough again to enable the war-boats which had cut off hisretreat to enter the creek. At any rate he was sure there would be an attempt tocarry off his long-boat, which lay below the hill, a dark high lump on the feeblesheen of a wet mud-flat. But no move of any sort was made by the boats in theriver. Over the stockade and the Rajah's buildings Brown saw their lights on thewater. They seemed to be anchored across the stream. Other lights afloat weremoving in the reach, crossing and recrossing from side to side. There were alsolights twinkling motionless upon the long walls of houses up the reach, as far asthe bend, and more still beyond, others isolated inland. The loom of the big firesdisclosed buildings, roofs, black piles as far as he could see. It was an immenseplace. The fourteen desperate invaders lying flat behind the felled trees raisedtheir chins to look over at the stir of that town that seemed to extend up-river formiles and swarm with thousands of angry men. They did not speak to each other.Now and then they would hear a loud yell, or a single shot rang out, fired very farsomewhere. But round their position everything was still, dark, silent. Theyseemed to be forgotten, as if the excitement keeping awake all the populationhad nothing to do with them, as if they had been dead already.' Chapter 39

'All the events of that night have a great importance, since they brought about asituation which remained unchanged till Jim's return. Jim had been away in theinterior for more than a week, and it was Dain Waris who had directed the firstrepulse. That brave and intelligent youth ("who knew how to fight after themanner of white men") wished to settle the business off-hand, but his peoplewere too much for him. He had not Jim's racial prestige and the reputation ofinvincible, supernatural power. He was not the visible, tangible incarnation ofunfailing truth and of unfailing victory. Beloved, trusted, and admired as he was,he was still one of them, while Jim was one of us. Moreover, the white man, atower of strength in himself, was invulnerable, while Dain Waris could be killed.Those unexpressed thoughts guided the opinions of the chief men of the town,who elected to assemble in Jim's fort for deliberation upon the emergency, as ifexpecting to find wisdom and courage in the dwelling of the absent white man.The shooting of Brown's ruffians was so far good, or lucky, that there had beenhalf-a-dozen casualties amongst the defenders. The wounded were lying on theverandah tended by their women-folk. The women and children from the lowerpart of the town had been sent into the fort at the first alarm. There Jewel was incommand, very efficient and high-spirited, obeyed by Jim's "own people," who,quitting in a body their little settlement under the stockade, had gone in to formthe garrison. The refugees crowded round her; and through the whole affair, tothe very disastrous last, she showed an extraordinary martial ardour. It was toher that Dain Waris had gone at once at the first intelligence of danger, for youmust know that Jim was the only one in Patusan who possessed a store ofgunpowder. Stein, with whom he had kept up intimate relations by letters, hadobtained from the Dutch Government a special authorisation to export fivehundred kegs of it to Patusan. The powder-magazine was a small hut of roughlogs covered entirely with earth, and in Jim's absence the girl had the key. In thecouncil, held at eleven o'clock in the evening in Jim's dining-room, she backed upWaris's advice for immediate and vigorous action. I am told that she stood up bythe side of Jim's empty chair at the head of the long table and made a warlikeimpassioned speech, which for the moment extorted murmurs of approbationfrom the assembled headmen. Old Doramin, who had not showed himselfoutside his own gate for more than a year, had been brought across with greatdifficulty. He was, of course, the chief man there. The temper of the council wasvery unforgiving, and the old man's word would have been decisive; but it is myopinion that, well aware of his son's fiery courage, he dared not pronounce theword. More dilatory counsels prevailed. A certain Haji Saman pointed out at greatlength that "these tyrannical and ferocious men had delivered themselves to acertain death in any case. They would stand fast on their hill and starve, or theywould try to regain their boat and be shot from ambushes across the creek, orthey would break and fly into the forest and perish singly there." He argued thatby the use of proper stratagems these evil-minded strangers could be destroyedwithout the risk of a battle, and his words had a great weight, especially with thePatusan men proper. What unsettled the minds of the townsfolk was the failure ofthe Rajah's boats to act at the decisive moment. It was the diplomatic Kassimwho represented the Rajah at the council. He spoke very little, listened smilingly,very friendly and impenetrable. During the sitting messengers kept arriving everyfew minutes almost, with reports of the invaders' proceedings. Wild andexaggerated rumours were flying: there was a large ship at the mouth of the riverwith big guns and many more men--some white, others with black skins and ofbloodthirsty appearance. They were coming with many more boats toexterminate every living thing. A sense of near, incomprehensible dangeraffected the common people. At one moment there was a panic in the courtyardamongst the women; shrieking; a rush; children crying--Haji Sunan went out toquiet them. Then a fort sentry fired at something moving on the river, and nearlykilled a villager bringing in his women-folk in a canoe together with the best of hisdomestic utensils and a dozen fowls. This caused more confusion. Meantime thepalaver inside Jim's house went on in the presence of the girl. Doramin sat fierce-faced, heavy, looking at the speakers in turn, and breathing slow like a bull. Hedidn't speak till the last, after Kassim had declared that the Rajah's boats wouldbe called in because the men were required to defend his master's stockade.Dain Waris in his father's presence would offer no opinion, though the girlentreated him in Jim's name to speak out. She offered him Jim's own men in heranxiety to have these intruders driven out at once. He only shook his head, aftera glance or two at Doramin. Finally, when the council broke up it had beendecided that the houses nearest the creek should be strongly occupied to obtainthe command of the enemy's boat. The boat itself was not to be interfered withopenly, so that the robbers on the hill should be tempted to embark, when a well-directed fire would kill most of them, no doubt. To cut off the escape of those whomight survive, and to prevent more of them coming up, Dain Waris was orderedby Doramin to take an armed party of Bugis down the river to a certain spot tenmiles below Patusan, and there form a camp on the shore and blockade thestream with the canoes. I don't believe for a moment that Doramin feared thearrival of fresh forces. My opinion is that his conduct was guided solely by hiswish to keep his son out of harm's way. To prevent a rush being made into thetown the construction of a stockade was to be commenced at daylight at the endof the street on the left bank. The old nakhoda declared his intention to commandthere himself. A distribution of powder, bullets, and percussion-caps was madeimmediately under the girl's supervision. Several messengers were to bedispatched in different directions after Jim, whose exact whereabouts wereunknown. These men started at dawn, but before that time Kassim had managedto open communications with the besieged Brown.

'That accomplished diplomatist and confidant of the Rajah, on leaving the fort togo back to his master, took into his boat Cornelius, whom he found slinkingmutely amongst the people in the courtyard. Kassim had a little plan of his ownand wanted him for an interpreter. Thus it came about that towards morningBrown, reflecting upon the desperate nature of his position, heard from themarshy overgrown hollow an amicable, quavering, strained voice crying--inEnglish--for permission to come up, under a promise of personal safety and on avery important errand. He was overjoyed. If he was spoken to he was no longer ahunted wild beast. These friendly sounds took off at once the awful stress ofvigilant watchfulness as of so many blind men not knowing whence thedeathblow might come. He pretended a great reluctance. The voice declareditself "a white man--a poor, ruined, old man who had been living here for years."A mist, wet and chilly, lay on the slopes of the hill, and after some more shoutingfrom one to the other, Brown called out, "Come on, then, but alone, mind!" As amatter of fact--he told me, writhing with rage at the recollection of hishelplessness--it made no difference. They couldn't see more than a few yardsbefore them, and no treachery could make their position worse. By-and-byCornelius, in his week-day attire of a ragged dirty shirt and pants, barefooted,with a broken-rimmed pith hat on his head, was made out vaguely, sidling up tothe defences, hesitating, stopping to listen in a peering posture. "Come along!You are safe," yelled Brown, while his men stared. All their hopes of life becamesuddenly centered in that dilapidated, mean newcomer, who in profound silenceclambered clumsily over a felled tree-trunk, and shivering, with his sour,mistrustful face, looked about at the knot of bearded, anxious, sleeplessdesperadoes.

'Half an hour's confidential talk with Cornelius opened Brown's eyes as to thehome affairs of Patusan. He was on the alert at once. There were possibilities,immense possibilities; but before he would talk over Cornelius's proposals hedemanded that some food should be sent up as a guarantee of good faith.Cornelius went off, creeping sluggishly down the hill on the side of the Rajah'spalace, and after some delay a few of Tunku Allang's men came up, bringing ascanty supply of rice, chillies, and dried fish. This was immeasurably better thannothing. Later on Cornelius returned accompanying Kassim, who stepped outwith an air of perfect good-humoured trustfulness, in sandals, and muffled upfrom neck to ankles in dark-blue sheeting. He shook hands with Brown discreetly,and the three drew aside for a conference. Brown's men, recovering theirconfidence, were slapping each other on the back, and cast knowing glances attheir captain while they busied themselves with preparations for cooking.

'Kassim disliked Doramin and his Bugis very much, but he hated the new order ofthings still more. It had occurred to him that these whites, together with theRajah's followers, could attack and defeat the Bugis before Jim's return. Then, hereasoned, general defection of the townsfolk was sure to follow, and the reign ofthe white man who protected poor people would be over. Afterwards the newallies could be dealt with. They would have no friends. The fellow was perfectlyable to perceive the difference of character, and had seen enough of white mento know that these newcomers were outcasts, men without country. Brownpreserved a stern and inscrutable demeanour. When he first heard Cornelius'svoice demanding admittance, it brought merely the hope of a loophole forescape. In less than an hour other thoughts were seething in his head. Urged byan extreme necessity, he had come there to steal food, a few tons of rubber orgum may be, perhaps a handful of dollars, and had found himself enmeshed bydeadly dangers. Now in consequence of these overtures from Kassim he beganto think of stealing the whole country. Some confounded fellow had apparentlyaccomplished something of the kind--single-handed at that. Couldn't have done itvery well though. Perhaps they could work together--squeeze everything dry andthen go out quietly. In the course of his negotiations with Kassim he becameaware that he was supposed to have a big ship with plenty of men outside.Kassim begged him earnestly to have this big ship with his many guns and menbrought up the river without delay for the Rajah's service. Brown professedhimself willing, and on this basis the negotiation was carried on with mutualdistrust. Three times in the course of the morning the courteous and activeKassim went down to consult the Rajah and came up busily with his long stride.Brown, while bargaining, had a sort of grim enjoyment in thinking of his wretchedschooner, with nothing but a heap of dirt in her hold, that stood for an armedship, and a Chinaman and a lame ex-beachcomber of Levuka on board, whorepresented all his many men. In the afternoon he obtained further doles of food,a promise of some money, and a supply of mats for his men to make shelters forthemselves. They lay down and snored, protected from the burning sunshine; butBrown, sitting fully exposed on one of the felled trees, feasted his eyes upon theview of the town and the river. There was much loot there. Cornelius, who hadmade himself at home in the camp, talked at his elbow, pointing out the localities,imparting advice, giving his own version of Jim's character, and commenting inhis own fashion upon the events of the last three years. Brown, who, apparentlyindifferent and gazing away, listened with attention to every word, could not makeout clearly what sort of man this Jim could be. "What's his name? Jim! Jim! That'snot enough for a man's name." "They call him," said Cornelius scornfully, "TuanJim here. As you may say Lord Jim." "What is he? Where does he come from?"inquired Brown. "What sort of man is he? Is he an Englishman?" "Yes, yes, he'san Englishman. I am an Englishman too. From Malacca. He is a fool. All youhave to do is to kill him and then you are king here. Everything belongs to him,"explained Cornelius. "It strikes me he may be made to share with somebodybefore very long," commented Brown half aloud. "No, no. The proper way is to killhim the first chance you get, and then you can do what you like," Cornelius wouldinsist earnestly. "I have lived for many years here, and I am giving you a friend'sadvice."

'In such converse and in gloating over the view of Patusan, which he haddetermined in his mind should become his prey, Brown whiled away most of theafternoon, his men, meantime, resting. On that day Dain Waris's fleet of canoesstole one by one under the shore farthest from the creek, and went down to closethe river against his retreat. Of this Brown was not aware, and Kassim, whocame up the knoll an hour before sunset, took good care not to enlighten him. Hewanted the white man's ship to come up the river, and this news, he feared,would be discouraging. He was very pressing with Brown to send the "order,"offering at the same time a trusty messenger, who for greater secrecy (as heexplained) would make his way by land to the mouth of the river and deliver the"order" on board. After some reflection Brown judged it expedient to tear a pageout of his pocket-book, on which he simply wrote, "We are getting on. Big job.Detain the man." The stolid youth selected by Kassim for that service performedit faithfully, and was rewarded by being suddenly tipped, head first, into theschooner's empty hold by the ex-beachcomber and the Chinaman, whothereupon hastened to put on the hatches. What became of him afterwardsBrown did not say.' Chapter 40

'Brown's object was to gain time by fooling with Kassim's diplomacy. For doing areal stroke of business he could not help thinking the white man was the personto work with. He could not imagine such a chap (who must be confoundedlyclever after all to get hold of the natives like that) refusing a help that would doaway with the necessity for slow, cautious, risky cheating, that imposed itself asthe only possible line of conduct for a single-handed man. He, Brown, would offerhim the power. No man could hesitate. Everything was in coming to a clearunderstanding. Of course they would share. The idea of there being a fort--allready to his hand--a real fort, with artillery (he knew this from Cornelius), excitedhim. Let him only once get in and . . . He would impose modest conditions. Nottoo low, though. The man was no fool, it seemed. They would work like brotherstill . . . till the time came for a quarrel and a shot that would settle all accounts.With grim impatience of plunder he wished himself to be talking with the mannow. The land already seemed to be his to tear to pieces, squeeze, and throwaway. Meantime Kassim had to be fooled for the sake of food first--and for asecond string. But the principal thing was to get something to eat from day today. Besides, he was not averse to begin fighting on that Rajah's account, andteach a lesson to those people who had received him with shots. The lust ofbattle was upon him.

'I am sorry that I can't give you this part of the story, which of course I havemainly from Brown, in Brown's own words. There was in the broken, violentspeech of that man, unveiling before me his thoughts with the very hand of Deathupon his throat, an undisguised ruthlessness of purpose, a strange vengefulattitude towards his own past, and a blind belief in the righteousness of his willagainst all mankind, something of that feeling which could induce the leader of ahorde of wandering cut-throats to call himself proudly the Scourge of God. Nodoubt the natural senseless ferocity which is the basis of such a character wasexasperated by failure, ill-luck, and the recent privations, as well as by thedesperate position in which he found himself; but what was most remarkable ofall was this, that while he planned treacherous alliances, had already settled inhis own mind the fate of the white man, and intrigued in an overbearing, offhandmanner with Kassim, one could perceive that what he had really desired, almostin spite of himself, was to play havoc with that jungle town which had defied him,to see it strewn over with corpses and enveloped in flames. Listening to hispitiless, panting voice, I could imagine how he must have looked at it from thehillock, peopling it with images of murder and rapine. The part nearest to thecreek wore an abandoned aspect, though as a matter of fact every houseconcealed a few armed men on the alert. Suddenly beyond the stretch of wasteground, interspersed with small patches of low dense bush, excavations, heapsof rubbish, with trodden paths between, a man, solitary and looking very small,strolled out into the deserted opening of the street between the shut-up, dark,lifeless buildings at the end. Perhaps one of the inhabitants, who had fled to theother bank of the river, coming back for some object of domestic use. Evidentlyhe supposed himself quite safe at that distance from the hill on the other side ofthe creek. A light stockade, set up hastily, was just round the turn of the street,full of his friends. He moved leisurely. Brown saw him, and instantly called to hisside the Yankee deserter, who acted as a sort of second in command. Thislanky, loose-jointed fellow came forward, wooden-faced, trailing his rifle lazily.When he understood what was wanted from him a homicidal and conceited smileuncovered his teeth, making two deep folds down his sallow, leathery cheeks. Heprided himself on being a dead shot. He dropped on one knee, and taking aimfrom a steady rest through the unlopped branches of a felled tree, fired, and atonce stood up to look. The man, far away, turned his head to the report, madeanother step forward, seemed to hesitate, and abruptly got down on his handsand knees. In the silence that fell upon the sharp crack of the rifle, the dead shot,keeping his eyes fixed upon the quarry, guessed that "this there coon's healthwould never be a source of anxiety to his friends any more." The man's limbswere seen to move rapidly under his body in an endeavour to run on all-fours. Inthat empty space arose a multitudinous shout of dismay and surprise. The mansank flat, face down, and moved no more. "That showed them what we coulddo," said Brown to me. "Struck the fear of sudden death into them. That waswhat we wanted. They were two hundred to one, and this gave them somethingto think over for the night. Not one of them had an idea of such a long shotbefore. That beggar belonging to the Rajah scooted down-hill with his eyeshanging out of his head."

'As he was telling me this he tried with a shaking hand to wipe the thin foam onhis blue lips. "Two hundred to one. Two hundred to one . . . strike terror, . . .terror, terror, I tell you. . . ." His own eyes were starting out of their sockets. Hefell back, clawing the air with skinny fingers, sat up again, bowed and hairy,glared at me sideways like some man-beast of folk-lore, with open mouth in hismiserable and awful agony before he got his speech back after that fit. There aresights one never forgets.

'Furthermore, to draw the enemy's fire and locate such parties as might havebeen hiding in the bushes along the creek, Brown ordered the Solomon Islanderto go down to the boat and bring an oar, as you send a spaniel after a stick intothe water. This failed, and the fellow came back without a single shot havingbeen fired at him from anywhere. "There's nobody," opined some of the men. It is"onnatural," remarked the Yankee. Kassim had gone, by that time, very muchimpressed, pleased too, and also uneasy. Pursuing his tortuous policy, he haddispatched a message to Dain Waris warning him to look out for the white men'sship, which, he had had information, was about to come up the river. Heminimised its strength and exhorted him to oppose its passage. This double-dealing answered his purpose, which was to keep the Bugis forces divided and toweaken them by fighting. On the other hand, he had in the course of that daysent word to the assembled Bugis chiefs in town, assuring them that he wastrying to induce the invaders to retire; his messages to the fort asked earnestlyfor powder for the Rajah's men. It was a long time since Tunku Allang had hadammunition for the score or so of old muskets rusting in their arm-racks in theaudience-hall. The open intercourse between the hill and the palace unsettled allthe minds. It was already time for men to take sides, it began to be said. Therewould soon be much bloodshed, and thereafter great trouble for many people.The social fabric of orderly, peaceful life, when every man was sure of to-morrow,the edifice raised by Jim's hands, seemed on that evening ready to collapse intoa ruin reeking with blood. The poorer folk were already taking to the bush orflying up the river. A good many of the upper class judged it necessary to go andpay their court to the Rajah. The Rajah's youths jostled them rudely. Old TunkuAllang, almost out of his mind with fear and indecision, either kept a sullensilence or abused them violently for daring to come with empty hands: theydeparted very much frightened; only old Doramin kept his countrymen togetherand pursued his tactics inflexibly. Enthroned in a big chair behind the improvisedstockade, he issued his orders in a deep veiled rumble, unmoved, like a deafman, in the flying rumours.

'Dusk fell, hiding first the body of the dead man, which had been left lying witharms outstretched as if nailed to the ground, and then the revolving sphere of thenight rolled smoothly over Patusan and came to a rest, showering the glitter ofcountless worlds upon the earth. Again, in the exposed part of the town big firesblazed along the only street, revealing from distance to distance upon their glaresthe falling straight lines of roofs, the fragments of wattled walls jumbled inconfusion, here and there a whole hut elevated in the glow upon the verticalblack stripes of a group of high piles and all this line of dwellings, revealed inpatches by the swaying flames, seemed to flicker tortuously away up-river intothe gloom at the heart of the land. A great silence, in which the looms ofsuccessive fires played without noise, extended into the darkness at the foot ofthe hill; but the other bank of the river, all dark save for a solitary bonfire at theriver-front before the fort, sent out into the air an increasing tremor that mighthave been the stamping of a multitude of feet, the hum of many voices, or the fallof an immensely distant waterfall. It was then, Brown confessed to me, while,turning his back on his men, he sat looking at it all, that notwithstanding hisdisdain, his ruthless faith in himself, a feeling came over him that at last he hadrun his head against a stone wall. Had his boat been afloat at the time, hebelieved he would have tried to steal away, taking his chances of a long chasedown the river and of starvation at sea. It is very doubtful whether he would havesucceeded in getting away. However, he didn't try this. For another moment hehad a passing thought of trying to rush the town, but he perceived very well thatin the end he would find himself in the lighted street, where they would be shotdown like dogs from the houses. They were two hundred to one--he thought,while his men, huddling round two heaps of smouldering embers, munched thelast of the bananas and roasted the few yams they owed to Kassim's diplomacy.Cornelius sat amongst them dozing sulkily.'Then one of the whites remembered that some tobacco had been left in the boat,and, encouraged by the impunity of the Solomon Islander, said he would go tofetch it. At this all the others shook off their despondency. Brown applied to, said,"Go, and be d--d to you," scornfully. He didn't think there was any danger ingoing to the creek in the dark. The man threw a leg over the tree-trunk anddisappeared. A moment later he was heard clambering into the boat and thenclambering out. "I've got it," he cried. A flash and a report at the very foot of thehill followed. "I am hit," yelled the man. "Look out, look out--I am hit," andinstantly all the rifles went off. The hill squirted fire and noise into the night like alittle volcano, and when Brown and the Yankee with curses and cuffs stopped thepanic-stricken firing, a profound, weary groan floated up from the creek,succeeded by a plaint whose heartrending sadness was like some poison turningthe blood cold in the veins. Then a strong voice pronounced several distinctincomprehensible words somewhere beyond the creek. "Let no one fire," shoutedBrown. "What does it mean?" . . . "Do you hear on the hill? Do you hear? Do youhear?" repeated the voice three times. Cornelius translated, and then promptedthe answer. "Speak," cried Brown, "we hear." Then the voice, declaiming in thesonorous inflated tone of a herald, and shifting continually on the edge of thevague waste-land, proclaimed that between the men of the Bugis nation living inPatusan and the white men on the hill and those with them, there would be nofaith, no compassion, no speech, no peace. A bush rustled; a haphazard volleyrang out. "Dam' foolishness," muttered the Yankee, vexedly grounding the butt.Cornelius translated. The wounded man below the hill, after crying out twice,"Take me up! take me up!" went on complaining in moans. While he had kept onthe blackened earth of the slope, and afterwards crouching in the boat, he hadbeen safe enough. It seems that in his joy at finding the tobacco he forgot himselfand jumped out on her off-side, as it were. The white boat, lying high and dry,showed him up; the creek was no more than seven yards wide in that place, andthere happened to be a man crouching in the bush on the other bank.

'He was a Bugis of Tondano only lately come to Patusan, and a relation of theman shot in the afternoon. That famous long shot had indeed appalled thebeholders. The man in utter security had been struck down, in full view of hisfriends, dropping with a joke on his lips, and they seemed to see in the act anatrocity which had stirred a bitter rage. That relation of his, Si-Lapa by name, wasthen with Doramin in the stockade only a few feet away. You who know thesechaps must admit that the fellow showed an unusual pluck by volunteering tocarry the message, alone, in the dark. Creeping across the open ground, he haddeviated to the left and found himself opposite the boat. He was startled whenBrown's man shouted. He came to a sitting position with his gun to his shoulder,and when the other jumped out, exposing himself, he pulled the trigger andlodged three jagged slugs point-blank into the poor wretch's stomach. Then, lyingflat on his face, he gave himself up for dead, while a thin hail of lead choppedand swished the bushes close on his right hand; afterwards he delivered hisspeech shouting, bent double, dodging all the time in cover. With the last word heleaped sideways, lay close for a while, and afterwards got back to the housesunharmed, having achieved on that night such a renown as his children will notwillingly allow to die.

'And on the hill the forlorn band let the two little heaps of embers go out undertheir bowed heads. They sat dejected on the ground with compressed lips anddowncast eyes, listening to their comrade below. He was a strong man and diedhard, with moans now loud, now sinking to a strange confidential note of pain.Sometimes he shrieked, and again, after a period of silence, he could be heardmuttering deliriously a long and unintelligible complaint. Never for a moment didhe cease.

' "What's the good?" Brown had said unmoved once, seeing the Yankee, whohad been swearing under his breath, prepare to go down. "That's so," assentedthe deserter, reluctantly desisting. "There's no encouragement for wounded menhere. Only his noise is calculated to make all the others think too much of thehereafter, cap'n." "Water!" cried the wounded man in an extraordinarily clearvigorous voice, and then went off moaning feebly. "Ay, water. Water will do it,"muttered the other to himself, resignedly. "Plenty by-and-by. The tide is flowing."

'At last the tide flowed, silencing the plaint and the cries of pain, and the dawnwas near when Brown, sitting with his chin in the palm of his hand beforePatusan, as one might stare at the unscalable side of a mountain, heard the briefringing bark of a brass 6-pounder far away in town somewhere. "What's this?" heasked of Cornelius, who hung about him. Cornelius listened. A muffled roaringshout rolled down-river over the town; a big drum began to throb, and othersresponded, pulsating and droning. Tiny scattered lights began to twinkle in thedark half of the town, while the part lighted by the loom of fires hummed with adeep and prolonged murmur. "He has come," said Cornelius. "What? Already?Are you sure?" Brown asked. "Yes! yes! Sure. Listen to the noise." "What arethey making that row about?" pursued Brown. "For joy," snorted Cornelius; "he isa very great man, but all the same, he knows no more than a child, and so theymake a great noise to please him, because they know no better." "Look here,"said Brown, "how is one to get at him?" "He shall come to talk to you," Corneliusdeclared. "What do you mean? Come down here strolling as it were?" Corneliusnodded vigorously in the dark. "Yes. He will come straight here and talk to you.He is just like a fool. You shall see what a fool he is." Brown was incredulous."You shall see; you shall see," repeated Cornelius. "He is not afraid--not afraid ofanything. He will come and order you to leave his people alone. Everybody mustleave his people alone. He is like a little child. He will come to you straight." Alas!he knew Jim well--that "mean little skunk," as Brown called him to me. "Yes,certainly," he pursued with ardour, "and then, captain, you tell that tall man with agun to shoot him. Just you kill him, and you will frighten everybody so much thatyou can do anything you like with them afterwards--get what you like--go awaywhen you like. Ha! ha! ha! Fine . . ." He almost danced with impatience andeagerness; and Brown, looking over his shoulder at him, could see, shown up bythe pitiless dawn, his men drenched with dew, sitting amongst the cold ashesand the litter of the camp, haggard, cowed, and in rags.' Chapter 41

'To the very last moment, till the full day came upon them with a spring, the fireson the west bank blazed bright and clear; and then Brown saw in a knot ofcoloured figures motionless between the advanced houses a man in Europeanclothes, in a helmet, all white. "That's him; look! look!" Cornelius said excitedly.All Brown's men had sprung up and crowded at his back with lustreless eyes.The group of vivid colours and dark faces with the white figure in their midst wereobserving the knoll. Brown could see naked arms being raised to shade the eyesand other brown arms pointing. What should he do? He looked around, and theforests that faced him on all sides walled the cock-pit of an unequal contest. Helooked once more at his men. A contempt, a weariness, the desire of life, thewish to try for one more chance--for some other grave--struggled in his breast.From the outline the figure presented it seemed to him that the white man there,backed up by all the power of the land, was examining his position throughbinoculars. Brown jumped up on the log, throwing his arms up, the palmsoutwards. The coloured group closed round the white man, and fell back twicebefore he got clear of them, walking slowly alone. Brown remained standing onthe log till Jim, appearing and disappearing between the patches of thorny scrub,had nearly reached the creek; then Brown jumped off and went down to meethim on his side.

'They met, I should think, not very far from the place, perhaps on the very spot,where Jim took the second desperate leap of his life--the leap that landed himinto the life of Patusan, into the trust, the love, the confidence of the people. Theyfaced each other across the creek, and with steady eyes tried to understandeach other before they opened their lips. Their antagonism must have beenexpressed in their glances; I know that Brown hated Jim at first sight. Whateverhopes he might have had vanished at once. This was not the man he hadexpected to see. He hated him for this-- and in a checked flannel shirt withsleeves cut off at the elbows, grey bearded, with a sunken, sun-blackened face--he cursed in his heart the other's youth and assurance, his clear eyes and hisuntroubled bearing. That fellow had got in a long way before him! He did not looklike a man who would be willing to give anything for assistance. He had all theadvantages on his side--possession, security, power; he was on the side of anoverwhelming force! He was not hungry and desperate, and he did not seem inthe least afraid. And there was something in the very neatness of Jim's clothes,from the white helmet to the canvas leggings and the pipeclayed shoes, which inBrown's sombre irritated eyes seemed to belong to things he had in the veryshaping of his life condemned and flouted.

' "Who are you?" asked Jim at last, speaking in his usual voice. "My name'sBrown," answered the other loudly; "Captain Brown. What's yours?" and Jim aftera little pause went on quietly, as If he had not heard: "What made you comehere?" "You want to know," said Brown bitterly. "It's easy to tell. Hunger. Andwhat made you?"

' "The fellow started at this," said Brown, relating to me the opening of thisstrange conversation between those two men, separated only by the muddy bedof a creek, but standing on the opposite poles of that conception of life whichincludes all mankind--"The fellow started at this and got very red in the face. Toobig to be questioned, I suppose. I told him that if he looked upon me as a deadman with whom you may take liberties, he himself was not a whit better off really.I had a fellow up there who had a bead drawn on him all the time, and onlywaited for a sign from me. There was nothing to be shocked at in this. He hadcome down of his own free will. 'Let us agree,' said I, 'that we are both dead men,and let us talk on that basis, as equals. We are all equal before death,' I said. Iadmitted I was there like a rat in a trap, but we had been driven to it, and even atrapped rat can give a bite. He caught me up in a moment. 'Not if you don't gonear the trap till the rat is dead.' I told him that sort of game was good enough forthese native friends of his, but I would have thought him too white to serve evena rat so. Yes, I had wanted to talk with him. Not to beg for my life, though. Myfellows were--well--what they were--men like himself, anyhow. All we wantedfrom him was to come on in the devil's name and have it out. 'God d--n it,' said I,while he stood there as still as a wooden post, 'you don't want to come out hereevery day with your glasses to count how many of us are left on our feet. Come.Either bring your infernal crowd along or let us go out and starve in the open sea,by God! You have been white once, for all your tall talk of this being your ownpeople and you being one with them. Are you? And what the devil do you get forit; what is it you've found here that is so d--d precious? Hey? You don't want usto come down here perhaps--do you? You are two hundred to one. You don'twant us to come down into the open. Ah! I promise you we shall give you somesport before you've done. You talk about me making a cowardly set uponunoffending people. What's that to me that they are unoffending, when I amstarving for next to no offence? But I am not a coward. Don't you be one. Bringthem along or, by all the fiends, we shall yet manage to send half yourunoffending town to heaven with us in smoke!' "

'He was terrible--relating this to me--this tortured skeleton of a man drawn up

together with his face over his knees, upon a miserable bed in that wretchedhovel, and lifting his head to look at me with malignant triumph.

' "That's what I told him--I knew what to say," he began again, feebly at first, butworking himself up with incredible speed into a fiery utterance of his scorn. "Wearen't going into the forest to wander like a string of living skeletons dropping oneafter another for ants to go to work upon us before we are fairly dead. Oh no! . . .'You don't deserve a better fate,' he said. 'And what do you deserve,' I shouted athim, 'you that I find skulking here with your mouth full of your responsibility, ofinnocent lives, of your infernal duty? What do you know more of me than I knowof you? I came here for food. D'ye hear?--food to fill our bellies. And what did youcome for? What did you ask for when you came here? We don't ask you foranything but to give us a fight or a clear road to go back whence we came. . . .' 'Iwould fight with you now,' says he, pulling at his little moustache. 'And I would letyou shoot me, and welcome,' I said. 'This is as good a jumping-off place for meas another. I am sick of my infernal luck. But it would be too easy. There are mymen in the same boat--and, by God, I am not the sort to jump out of trouble andleave them in a d--d lurch,' I said. He stood thinking for a while and then wantedto know what I had done ('out there' he says, tossing his head down-stream) tobe hazed about so. 'Have we met to tell each other the story of our lives?' I askedhim. 'Suppose you begin. No? Well, I am sure I don't want to hear. Keep it toyourself. I know it is no better than mine. I've lived--and so did you, though youtalk as if you were one of those people that should have wings so as to go aboutwithout touching the dirty earth. Well--it is dirty. I haven't got any wings. I am herebecause I was afraid once in my life. Want to know what of? Of a prison. Thatscares me, and you may know it--if it's any good to you. I won't ask you whatscared you into this infernal hole, where you seem to have found pretty pickings.That's your luck and this is mine--the privilege to beg for the favour of being shotquickly, or else kicked out to go free and starve in my own way.' . . ."

'His debilitated body shook with an exultation so vehement, so assured, and so

malicious that it seemed to have driven off the death waiting for him in that hut.The corpse of his mad self-love uprose from rags and destitution as from thedark horrors of a tomb. It is impossible to say how much he lied to Jim then, howmuch he lied to me now--and to himself always. Vanity plays lurid tricks with ourmemory, and the truth of every passion wants some pretence to make it live.Standing at the gate of the other world in the guise of a beggar, he had slappedthis world's face, he had spat on it, he had thrown upon it an immensity of scornand revolt at the bottom of his misdeeds. He had overcome them all--men,women, savages, traders, ruffians, missionaries--and Jim--"that beefy-facedbeggar." I did not begrudge him this triumph in articulo mortis, this almostposthumous illusion of having trampled all the earth under his feet. While he wasboasting to me, in his sordid and repulsive agony, I couldn't help thinking of thechuckling talk relating to the time of his greatest splendour when, during a year ormore, Gentleman Brown's ship was to be seen, for many days on end, hoveringoff an islet befringed with green upon azure, with the dark dot of the mission-house on a white beach; while Gentleman Brown, ashore, was casting his spellsover a romantic girl for whom Melanesia had been too much, and giving hopes ofa remarkable conversion to her husband. The poor man, some time or other, hadbeen heard to express the intention of winning "Captain Brown to a better way oflife." . . . "Bag Gentleman Brown for Glory"--as a leery-eyed loafer expressed itonce--"just to let them see up above what a Western Pacific trading skipper lookslike." And this was the man, too, who had run off with a dying woman, and hadshed tears over her body. "Carried on like a big baby," his then mate was nevertired of telling, "and where the fun came in may I be kicked to death by diseasedKanakas if I know. Why, gents! she was too far gone when he brought heraboard to know him; she just lay there on her back in his bunk staring at thebeam with awful shining eyes--and then she died. Dam' bad sort of fever, Iguess. . . ." I remembered all these stories while, wiping his matted lump of abeard with a livid hand, he was telling me from his noisome couch how he gotround, got in, got home, on that confounded, immaculate, don't-you-touch-mesort of fellow. He admitted that he couldn't be scared, but there was a way, "asbroad as a turnpike, to get in and shake his twopenny soul around and inside outand upside down--by God!" ' Chapter 42

'I don't think he could do more than perhaps look upon that straight path. Heseemed to have been puzzled by what he saw, for he interrupted himself in hisnarrative more than once to exclaim, "He nearly slipped from me there. I couldnot make him out. Who was he?" And after glaring at me wildly he would go on,jubilating and sneering. To me the conversation of these two across the creekappears now as the deadliest kind of duel on which Fate looked on with her cold-eyed knowledge of the end. No, he didn't turn Jim's soul inside out, but I ammuch mistaken if the spirit so utterly out of his reach had not been made to tasteto the full the bitterness of that contest. These were the emissaries with whomthe world he had renounced was pursuing him in his retreat--white men from "outthere" where he did not think himself good enough to live. This was all that cameto him--a menace, a shock, a danger to his work. I suppose it is this sad, half-resentful, half-resigned feeling, piercing through the few words Jim said now andthen, that puzzled Brown so much in the reading of his character. Some greatmen owe most of their greatness to the ability of detecting in those they destinefor their tools the exact quality of strength that matters for their work; and Brown,as though he had been really great, had a satanic gift of finding out the best andthe weakest spot in his victims. He admitted to me that Jim wasn't of the sort thatcan be got over by truckling, and accordingly he took care to show himself as aman confronting without dismay ill-luck, censure, and disaster. The smuggling ofa few guns was no great crime, he pointed out. As to coming to Patusan, whohad the right to say he hadn't come to beg? The infernal people here let loose athim from both banks without staying to ask questions. He made the pointbrazenly, for, in truth, Dain Waris's energetic action had prevented the greatestcalamities; because Brown told me distinctly that, perceiving the size of theplace, he had resolved instantly in his mind that as soon as he had gained afooting he would set fire right and left, and begin by shooting down everythingliving in sight, in order to cow and terrify the population. The disproportion offorces was so great that this was the only way giving him the slightest chance ofattaining his ends--he argued in a fit of coughing. But he didn't tell Jim this. As tothe hardships and starvation they had gone through, these had been very real; itwas enough to look at his band. He made, at the sound of a shrill whistle, all hismen appear standing in a row on the logs in full view, so that Jim could see them.For the killing of the man, it had been done--well, it had--but was not this war,bloody war--in a corner? and the fellow had been killed cleanly, shot through thechest, not like that poor devil of his lying now in the creek. They had to listen tohim dying for six hours, with his entrails torn with slugs. At any rate this was a lifefor a life. . . . And all this was said with the weariness, with the recklessness of aman spurred on and on by ill-luck till he cares not where he runs. When he askedJim, with a sort of brusque despairing frankness, whether he himself--straightnow--didn't understand that when "it came to saving one's life in the dark, onedidn't care who else went--three, thirty, three hundred people"--it was as if ademon had been whispering advice in his ear. "I made him wince," boastedBrown to me. "He very soon left off coming the righteous over me. He just stoodthere with nothing to say, and looking as black as thunder--not at me--on theground." He asked Jim whether he had nothing fishy in his life to remember thathe was so damnedly hard upon a man trying to get out of a deadly hole by thefirst means that came to hand--and so on, and so on. And there ran through therough talk a vein of subtle reference to their common blood, an assumption ofcommon experience; a sickening suggestion of common guilt, of secretknowledge that was like a bond of their minds and of their hearts.

'At last Brown threw himself down full length and watched Jim out of the cornersof his eyes. Jim on his side of the creek stood thinking and switching his leg. Thehouses in view were silent, as if a pestilence had swept them clean of everybreath of life; but many invisible eyes were turned, from within, upon the two menwith the creek between them, a stranded white boat, and the body of the thirdman half sunk in the mud. On the river canoes were moving again, for Patusanwas recovering its belief in the stability of earthly institutions since the return ofthe white lord. The right bank, the platforms of the houses, the rafts mooredalong the shores, even the roofs of bathing-huts, were covered with people that,far away out of earshot and almost out of sight, were straining their eyes towardsthe knoll beyond the Rajah's stockade. Within the wide irregular ring of forests,broken in two places by the sheen of the river, there was a silence. "Will youpromise to leave the coast?" Jim asked. Brown lifted and let fall his hand, givingeverything up as it were--accepting the inevitable. "And surrender your arms?"Jim went on. Brown sat up and glared across. "Surrender our arms! Not till youcome to take them out of our stiff hands. You think I am gone crazy with funk?Oh no! That and the rags I stand in is all I have got in the world, besides a fewmore breechloaders on board; and I expect to sell the lot in Madagascar, if I everget so far--begging my way from ship to ship."

'Jim said nothing to this. At last, throwing away the switch he held in his hand, hesaid, as if speaking to himself, "I don't know whether I have the power." . . . "Youdon't know! And you wanted me just now to give up my arms! That's good, too,"cried Brown; "Suppose they say one thing to you, and do the other thing to me."He calmed down markedly. "I dare say you have the power, or what's themeaning of all this talk?" he continued. "What did you come down here for? Topass the time of day?"

' "Very well," said Jim, lifting his head suddenly after a long silence. "You shallhave a clear road or else a clear fight." He turned on his heel and walked away.

'Brown got up at once, but he did not go up the hill till he had seen Jim disappearbetween the first houses. He never set his eyes on him again. On his way backhe met Cornelius slouching down with his head between his shoulders. Hestopped before Brown. "Why didn't you kill him?" he demanded in a sour,discontented voice. "Because I could do better than that," Brown said with anamused smile. "Never! never!" protested Cornelius with energy. "Couldn't. I havelived here for many years." Brown looked up at him curiously. There were manysides to the life of that place in arms against him; things he would never find out.Cornelius slunk past dejectedly in the direction of the river. He was now leavinghis new friends; he accepted the disappointing course of events with a sulkyobstinacy which seemed to draw more together his little yellow old face; and ashe went down he glanced askant here and there, never giving up his fixed idea.

'Henceforth events move fast without a check, flowing from the very hearts ofmen like a stream from a dark source, and we see Jim amongst them, mostlythrough Tamb' Itam's eyes. The girl's eyes had watched him too, but her life istoo much entwined with his: there is her passion, her wonder, her anger, and,above all, her fear and her unforgiving love. Of the faithful servant,uncomprehending as the rest of them, it is the fidelity alone that comes into play;a fidelity and a belief in his lord so strong that even amazement is subdued to asort of saddened acceptance of a mysterious failure. He has eyes only for onefigure, and through all the mazes of bewilderment he preserves his air ofguardianship, of obedience, of care.

'His master came back from his talk with the white men, walking slowly towardsthe stockade in the street. Everybody was rejoiced to see him return, for while hewas away every man had been afraid not only of him being killed, but also ofwhat would come after. Jim went into one of the houses, where old Doramin hadretired, and remained alone for a long time with the head of the Bugis settlers. Nodoubt he discussed the course to follow with him then, but no man was presentat the conversation. Only Tamb' Itam, keeping as close to the door as he could,heard his master say, "Yes. I shall let all the people know that such is my wish;but I spoke to you, O Doramin, before all the others, and alone; for you know myheart as well as I know yours and its greatest desire. And you know well also thatI have no thought but for the people's good." Then his master, lifting the sheetingin the doorway, went out, and he, Tamb' Itam, had a glimpse of old Doraminwithin, sitting in the chair with his hands on his knees, and looking between hisfeet. Afterwards he followed his master to the fort, where all the principal Bugisand Patusan inhabitants had been summoned for a talk. Tamb' Itam himselfhoped there would be some fighting. "What was it but the taking of another hill?"he exclaimed regretfully. However, in the town many hoped that the rapaciousstrangers would be induced, by the sight of so many brave men making ready tofight, to go away. It would be a good thing if they went away. Since Jim's arrivalhad been made known before daylight by the gun fired from the fort and thebeating of the big drum there, the fear that had hung over Patusan had brokenand subsided like a wave on a rock, leaving the seething foam of excitement,curiosity, and endless speculation. Half of the population had been ousted out oftheir homes for purposes of defence, and were living in the street on the left sideof the river, crowding round the fort, and in momentary expectation of seeingtheir abandoned dwellings on the threatened bank burst into flames. The generalanxiety was to see the matter settled quickly. Food, through Jewel's care, hadbeen served out to the refugees. Nobody knew what their white man would do.Some remarked that it was worse than in Sherif Ali's war. Then many people didnot care; now everybody had something to lose. The movements of canoespassing to and fro between the two parts of the town were watched with interest.A couple of Bugis war-boats lay anchored in the middle of the stream to protectthe river, and a thread of smoke stood at the bow of each; the men in them werecooking their midday rice when Jim, after his interviews with Brown and Doramin,crossed the river and entered by the water-gate of his fort. The people insidecrowded round him, so that he could hardly make his way to the house. They hadnot seen him before, because on his arrival during the night he had onlyexchanged a few words with the girl, who had come down to the landing-stagefor the purpose, and had then gone on at once to join the chiefs and the fightingmen on the other bank. People shouted greetings after him. One old womanraised a laugh by pushing her way to the front madly and enjoining him in ascolding voice to see to it that her two sons, who were with Doramin, did notcome to harm at the hands of the robbers. Several of the bystanders tried to pullher away, but she struggled and cried, "Let me go. What is this, O Muslims? Thislaughter is unseemly. Are they not cruel, bloodthirsty robbers bent on killing?""Let her be," said Jim, and as a silence fell suddenly, he said slowly, "Everybodyshall be safe." He entered the house before the great sigh, and the loud murmursof satisfaction, had died out.

'There's no doubt his mind was made up that Brown should have his way clearback to the sea. His fate, revolted, was forcing his hand. He had for the first timeto affirm his will in the face of outspoken opposition. "There was much talk, andat first my master was silent," Tamb' Itam said. "Darkness came, and then I lit thecandles on the long table. The chiefs sat on each side, and the lady remained bymy master's right hand."

'When he began to speak, the unaccustomed difficulty seemed only to fix hisresolve more immovably. The white men were now waiting for his answer on thehill. Their chief had spoken to him in the language of his own people, makingclear many things difficult to explain in any other speech. They were erring menwhom suffering had made blind to right and wrong. It is true that lives had beenlost already, but why lose more? He declared to his hearers, the assembledheads of the people, that their welfare was his welfare, their losses his losses,their mourning his mourning. He looked round at the grave listening faces andtold them to remember that they had fought and worked side by side. They knewhis courage . . . Here a murmur interrupted him . . . And that he had neverdeceived them. For many years they had dwelt together. He loved the land andthe people living in it with a very great love. He was ready to answer with his lifefor any harm that should come to them if the white men with beards were allowedto retire. They were evil-doers, but their destiny had been evil, too. Had he everadvised them ill? Had his words ever brought suffering to the people? he asked.He believed that it would be best to let these whites and their followers go withtheir lives. It would be a small gift. "I whom you have tried and found always trueask you to let them go." He turned to Doramin. The old nakhoda made nomovement. "Then," said Jim, "call in Dain Waris, your son, my friend, for in thisbusiness I shall not lead." ' Chapter 43

'Tamb' Itam behind his chair was thunderstruck. The declaration produced animmense sensation. "Let them go because this is best in my knowledge whichhas never deceived you," Jim insisted. There was a silence. In the darkness ofthe courtyard could be heard the subdued whispering, shuffling noise of manypeople. Doramin raised his heavy head and said that there was no more readingof hearts than touching the sky with the hand, but--he consented. The othersgave their opinion in turn. "It is best," "Let them go," and so on. But most of themsimply said that they "believed Tuan Jim."

'In this simple form of assent to his will lies the whole gist of the situation; theircreed, his truth; and the testimony to that faithfulness which made him in his owneyes the equal of the impeccable men who never fall out of the ranks. Stein'swords, "Romantic!-- Romantic!" seem to ring over those distances that will nevergive him up now to a world indifferent to his failings and his virtues, and to thatardent and clinging affection that refuses him the dole of tears in thebewilderment of a great grief and of eternal separation. From the moment thesheer truthfulness of his last three years of life carries the day against theignorance, the fear, and the anger of men, he appears no longer to me as I sawhim last--a white speck catching all the dim light left upon a sombre coast and thedarkened sea--but greater and more pitiful in the loneliness of his soul, thatremains even for her who loved him best a cruel and insoluble mystery.

'It is evident that he did not mistrust Brown; there was no reason to doubt thestory, whose truth seemed warranted by the rough frankness, by a sort of virilesincerity in accepting the morality and the consequences of his acts. But Jim didnot know the almost inconceivable egotism of the man which made him, whenresisted and foiled in his will, mad with the indignant and revengeful rage of athwarted autocrat. But if Jim did not mistrust Brown, he was evidently anxiousthat some misunderstanding should not occur, ending perhaps in collision andbloodshed. It was for this reason that directly the Malay chiefs had gone heasked Jewel to get him something to eat, as he was going out of the fort to takecommand in the town. On her remonstrating against this on the score of hisfatigue, he said that something might happen for which he would never forgivehimself. "I am responsible for every life in the land," he said. He was moody atfirst; she served him with her own hands, taking the plates and dishes (of thedinner-service presented him by Stein) from Tamb' Itam. He brightened up after awhile; told her she would be again in command of the fort for another night."There's no sleep for us, old girl," he said, "while our people are in danger." Lateron he said jokingly that she was the best man of them all. "If you and Dain Warishad done what you wanted, not one of these poor devils would be alive to-day.""Are they very bad?" she asked, leaning over his chair. "Men act badlysometimes without being much worse than others," he said after some hesitation.'Tamb' Itam followed his master to the landing-stage outside the fort. The nightwas clear but without a moon, and the middle of the river was dark, while thewater under each bank reflected the light of many fires "as on a night ofRamadan," Tamb' Itam said. War-boats drifted silently in the dark lane or,anchored, floated motionless with a loud ripple. That night there was muchpaddling in a canoe and walking at his master's heels for Tamb' Itam: up anddown the street they tramped, where the fires were burning, inland on theoutskirts of the town where small parties of men kept guard in the fields. TuanJim gave his orders and was obeyed. Last of all they went to the Rajah'sstockade, which a detachment of Jim's people manned on that night. The oldRajah had fled early in the morning with most of his women to a small house hehad near a jungle village on a tributary stream. Kassim, left behind, had attendedthe council with his air of diligent activity to explain away the diplomacy of the daybefore. He was considerably cold-shouldered, but managed to preserve hissmiling, quiet alertness, and professed himself highly delighted when Jim toldhim sternly that he proposed to occupy the stockade on that night with his ownmen. After the council broke up he was heard outside accosting this and thatdeputing chief, and speaking in a loud, gratified tone of the Rajah's propertybeing protected in the Rajah's absence.

'About ten or so Jim's men marched in. The stockade commanded the mouth ofthe creek, and Jim meant to remain there till Brown had passed below. A smallfire was lit on the flat, grassy point outside the wall of stakes, and Tamb' Itamplaced a little folding-stool for his master. Jim told him to try and sleep. Tamb'Itam got a mat and lay down a little way off; but he could not sleep, though heknew he had to go on an important journey before the night was out. His masterwalked to and fro before the fire with bowed head and with his hands behind hisback. His face was sad. Whenever his master approached him Tamb' Itampretended to sleep, not wishing his master to know he had been watched. At lasthis master stood still, looking down on him as he lay, and said softly, "It is time."

'Tamb' Itam arose directly and made his preparations. His mission was to godown the river, preceding Brown's boat by an hour or more, to tell Dain Warisfinally and formally that the whites were to be allowed to pass out unmolested.Jim would not trust anybody else with that service. Before starting, Tamb' Itam,more as a matter of form (since his position about Jim made him perfectlyknown), asked for a token. "Because, Tuan," he said, "the message is important,and these are thy very words I carry." His master first put his hand into onepocket, then into another, and finally took off his forefinger Stein's silver ring,which he habitually wore, and gave it to Tamb' Itam. When Tamb' Itam left on hismission, Brown's camp on the knoll was dark but for a single small glow shiningthrough the branches of one of the trees the white men had cut down.

'Early in the evening Brown had received from Jim a folded piece of paper onwhich was written, "You get the clear road. Start as soon as your boat floats onthe morning tide. Let your men be careful. The bushes on both sides of the creekand the stockade at the mouth are full of well-armed men. You would have nochance, but I don't believe you want bloodshed." Brown read it, tore the paperinto small pieces, and, turning to Cornelius, who had brought it, said jeeringly,"Good-bye, my excellent friend." Cornelius had been in the fort, and had beensneaking around Jim's house during the afternoon. Jim chose him to carry thenote because he could speak English, was known to Brown, and was not likely tobe shot by some nervous mistake of one of the men as a Malay, approaching inthe dusk, perhaps might have been.

'Cornelius didn't go away after delivering the paper. Brown was sitting up over atiny fire; all the others were lying down. "I could tell you something you would liketo know," Cornelius mumbled crossly. Brown paid no attention. "You did not killhim," went on the other, "and what do you get for it? You might have had moneyfrom the Rajah, besides the loot of all the Bugis houses, and now you getnothing." "You had better clear out from here," growled Brown, without evenlooking at him. But Cornelius let himself drop by his side and began to whispervery fast, touching his elbow from time to time. What he had to say made Brownsit up at first, with a curse. He had simply informed him of Dain Waris's armedparty down the river. At first Brown saw himself completely sold and betrayed,but a moment's reflection convinced him that there could be no treacheryintended. He said nothing, and after a while Cornelius remarked, in a tone ofcomplete indifference, that there was another way out of the river which he knewvery well. "A good thing to know, too," said Brown, pricking up his ears; andCornelius began to talk of what went on in town and repeated all that had beensaid in council, gossiping in an even undertone at Brown's ear as you talkamongst sleeping men you do not wish to wake. "He thinks he has made meharmless, does he?" mumbled Brown very low. . . . "Yes. He is a fool. A littlechild. He came here and robbed me," droned on Cornelius, "and he made all thepeople believe him. But if something happened that they did not believe him anymore, where would he be? And the Bugis Dain who is waiting for you down theriver there, captain, is the very man who chased you up here when you firstcame." Brown observed nonchalantly that it would be just as well to avoid him,and with the same detached, musing air Cornelius declared himself acquaintedwith a backwater broad enough to take Brown's boat past Waris's camp. "You willhave to be quiet," he said as an afterthought, "for in one place we pass closebehind his camp. Very close. They are camped ashore with their boats hauledup." "Oh, we know how to be as quiet as mice; never fear," said Brown. Corneliusstipulated that in case he were to pilot Brown out, his canoe should be towed. "I'llhave to get back quick," he explained.

'It was two hours before the dawn when word was passed to the stockade fromoutlying watchers that the white robbers were coming down to their boat. In avery short time every armed man from one end of Patusan to the other was onthe alert, yet the banks of the river remained so silent that but for the firesburning with sudden blurred flares the town might have been asleep as if inpeace-time. A heavy mist lay very low on the water, making a sort of illusive greylight that showed nothing. When Brown's long-boat glided out of the creek intothe river, Jim was standing on the low point of land before the Rajah's stockade--on the very spot where for the first time he put his foot on Patusan shore. Ashadow loomed up, moving in the greyness, solitary, very bulky, and yetconstantly eluding the eye. A murmur of low talking came out of it. Brown at thetiller heard Jim speak calmly: "A clear road. You had better trust to the currentwhile the fog lasts; but this will lift presently." "Yes, presently we shall see clear,"replied Brown.

'The thirty or forty men standing with muskets at ready outside the stockade heldtheir breath. The Bugis owner of the prau, whom I saw on Stein's verandah, andwho was amongst them, told me that the boat, shaving the low point close,seemed for a moment to grow big and hang over it like a mountain. "If you think itworth your while to wait a day outside," called out Jim, "I'll try to send you downsomething--a bullock, some yams--what I can." The shadow went on moving."Yes. Do," said a voice, blank and muffled out of the fog. Not one of the manyattentive listeners understood what the words meant; and then Brown and hismen in their boat floated away, fading spectrally without the slightest sound.

'Thus Brown, invisible in the mist, goes out of Patusan elbow to elbow withCornelius in the stern-sheets of the long-boat. "Perhaps you shall get a smallbullock," said Cornelius. "Oh yes. Bullock. Yam. You'll get it if he said so. Healways speaks the truth. He stole everything I had. I suppose you like a smallbullock better than the loot of many houses." "I would advise you to hold yourtongue, or somebody here may fling you overboard into this damned fog," saidBrown. The boat seemed to be standing still; nothing could be seen, not even theriver alongside, only the water-dust flew and trickled, condensed, down theirbeards and faces. It was weird, Brown told me. Every individual man of them feltas though he were adrift alone in a boat, haunted by an almost imperceptiblesuspicion of sighing, muttering ghosts. "Throw me out, would you? But I wouldknow where I was," mumbled Cornelius surlily. "I've lived many years here." "Notlong enough to see through a fog like this," Brown said, lolling back with his armswinging to and fro on the useless tiller. "Yes. Long enough for that," snarledCornelius. "That's very useful," commented Brown. "Am I to believe you couldfind that backway you spoke of blindfold, like this?" Cornelius grunted. "Are youtoo tired to row?" he asked after a silence. "No, by God!" shouted Brownsuddenly. "Out with your oars there." There was a great knocking in the fog,which after a while settled into a regular grind of invisible sweeps againstinvisible thole-pins. Otherwise nothing was changed, and but for the slight splashof a dipped blade it was like rowing a balloon car in a cloud, said Brown.Thereafter Cornelius did not open his lips except to ask querulously forsomebody to bale out his canoe, which was towing behind the long-boat.Gradually the fog whitened and became luminous ahead. To the left Brown sawa darkness as though he had been looking at the back of the departing night. Allat once a big bough covered with leaves appeared above his head, and ends oftwigs, dripping and still, curved slenderly close alongside. Cornelius, without aword, took the tiller from his hand.' Chapter 44

'I don't think they spoke together again. The boat entered a narrow by-channel,where it was pushed by the oar-blades set into crumbling banks, and there was agloom as if enormous black wings had been outspread above the mist that filledits depth to the summits of the trees. The branches overhead showered big dropsthrough the gloomy fog. At a mutter from Cornelius, Brown ordered his men toload. "I'll give you a chance to get even with them before we're done, you dismalcripples, you," he said to his gang. "Mind you don't throw it away--you hounds."Low growls answered that speech. Cornelius showed much fussy concern for thesafety of his canoe.

'Meantime Tamb' Itam had reached the end of his journey. The fog had delayedhim a little, but he had paddled steadily, keeping in touch with the south bank.By-and-by daylight came like a glow in a ground glass globe. The shores madeon each side of the river a dark smudge, in which one could detect hints ofcolumnar forms and shadows of twisted branches high up. The mist was stillthick on the water, but a good watch was being kept, for as Iamb' Itamapproached the camp the figures of two men emerged out of the white vapour,and voices spoke to him boisterously. He answered, and presently a canoe layalongside, and he exchanged news with the paddlers. All was well. The troublewas over. Then the men in the canoe let go their grip on the side of his dug-outand incontinently fell out of sight. He pursued his way till he heard voices comingto him quietly over the water, and saw, under the now lifting, swirling mist, theglow of many little fires burning on a sandy stretch, backed by lofty thin timberand bushes. There again a look-out was kept, for he was challenged. He shoutedhis name as the two last sweeps of his paddle ran his canoe up on the strand. Itwas a big camp. Men crouched in many little knots under a subdued murmur ofearly morning talk. Many thin threads of smoke curled slowly on the white mist.Little shelters, elevated above the ground, had been built for the chiefs. Musketswere stacked in small pyramids, and long spears were stuck singly into the sandnear the fires.

'Tamb' Itam, assuming an air of importance, demanded to be led to Dain Waris.

He found the friend of his white lord lying on a raised couch made of bamboo,and sheltered by a sort of shed of sticks covered with mats. Dain Waris wasawake, and a bright fire was burning before his sleeping-place, which resembleda rude shrine. The only son of nakhoda Doramin answered his greeting kindly.Tamb' Itam began by handing him the ring which vouched for the truth of themessenger's words. Dain Waris, reclining on his elbow, bade him speak and tellall the news. Beginning with the consecrated formula, "The news is good," Tamb'Itam delivered Jim's own words. The white men, deputing with the consent of allthe chiefs, were to be allowed to pass down the river. In answer to a question ortwo Tamb' Itam then reported the proceedings of the last council. Dain Warislistened attentively to the end, toying with the ring which ultimately he slipped onthe forefinger of his right hand. After hearing all he had to say he dismissedTamb' Itam to have food and rest. Orders for the return in the afternoon weregiven immediately. Afterwards Dain Waris lay down again, open-eyed, while hispersonal attendants were preparing his food at the fire, by which Tamb' Itam alsosat talking to the men who lounged up to hear the latest intelligence from thetown. The sun was eating up the mist. A good watch was kept upon the reach ofthe main stream where the boat of the whites was expected to appear everymoment.

'It was then that Brown took his revenge upon the world which, after twenty yearsof contemptuous and reckless bullying, refused him the tribute of a commonrobber's success. It was an act of cold-blooded ferocity, and it consoled him onhis deathbed like a memory of an indomitable defiance. Stealthily he landed hismen on the other side of the island opposite to the Bugis camp, and led themacross. After a short but quite silent scuffle, Cornelius, who had tried to slinkaway at the moment of landing, resigned himself to show the way where theundergrowth was most sparse. Brown held both his skinny hands togetherbehind his back in the grip of one vast fist, and now and then impelled himforward with a fierce push. Cornelius remained as mute as a fish, abject butfaithful to his purpose, whose accomplishment loomed before him dimly. At theedge of the patch of forest Brown's men spread themselves out in cover andwaited. The camp was plain from end to end before their eyes, and no onelooked their way. Nobody even dreamed that the white men could have anyknowledge of the narrow channel at the back of the island. When he judged themoment come, Brown yelled, "Let them have it," and fourteen shots rang out likeone.

'Tamb' Itam told me the surprise was so great that, except for those who fell deador wounded, not a soul of them moved for quite an appreciable time after the firstdischarge. Then a man screamed, and after that scream a great yell ofamazement and fear went up from all the throats. A blind panic drove these menin a surging swaying mob to and fro along the shore like a herd of cattle afraid ofthe water. Some few jumped into the river then, but most of them did so onlyafter the last discharge. Three times Brown's men fired into the ruck, Brown, theonly one in view, cursing and yelling, "Aim low! aim low!"

'Tamb' Itam says that, as for him, he understood at the first volley what hadhappened. Though untouched he fell down and lay as if dead, but with his eyesopen. At the sound of the first shots Dain Waris, reclining on the couch, jumpedup and ran out upon the open shore, just in time to receive a bullet in hisforehead at the second discharge. Tamb' Itam saw him fling his arms wide openbefore he fell. Then, he says, a great fear came upon him--not before. The whitemen retired as they had come--unseen.'Thus Brown balanced his account with the evil fortune. Notice that even in thisawful outbreak there is a superiority as of a man who carries right--the abstractthing--within the envelope of his common desires. It was not a vulgar andtreacherous massacre; it was a lesson, a retribution--a demonstration of someobscure and awful attribute of our nature which, I am afraid, is not so very farunder the surface as we like to think.

'Afterwards the whites depart unseen by Tamb' Itam, and seem to vanish frombefore men's eyes altogether; and the schooner, too, vanishes after the mannerof stolen goods. But a story is told of a white long-boat picked up a month later inthe Indian Ocean by a cargo steamer. Two parched, yellow, glassy-eyed,whispering skeletons in her recognised the authority of a third, who declared thathis name was Brown. His schooner, he reported, bound south with a cargo ofJava sugar, had sprung a bad leak and sank under his feet. He and hiscompanions were the survivors of a crew of six. The two died on board thesteamer which rescued them. Brown lived to be seen by me, and I can testify thathe had played his part to the last.

'It seems, however, that in going away they had neglected to cast off Cornelius'scanoe. Cornelius himself Brown had let go at the beginning of the shooting, witha kick for a parting benediction. Tamb' Itam, after arising from amongst the dead,saw the Nazarene running up and down the shore amongst the corpses and theexpiring fires. He uttered little cries. Suddenly he rushed to the water, and madefrantic efforts to get one of the Bugis boats into the water. "Afterwards, till he hadseen me," related Tamb' Itam, "he stood looking at the heavy canoe andscratching his head." "What became of him?" I asked. Tamb' Itam, staring hard atme, made an expressive gesture with his right arm. "Twice I struck, Tuan," hesaid. "When he beheld me approaching he cast himself violently on the groundand made a great outcry, kicking. He screeched like a frightened hen till he feltthe point; then he was still, and lay staring at me while his life went out of hiseyes."

'This done, Tamb' Itam did not tarry. He understood the importance of being thefirst with the awful news at the fort. There were, of course, many survivors ofDain Waris's party; but in the extremity of panic some had swum across the river,others had bolted into the bush. The fact is that they did not know really whostruck that blow--whether more white robbers were not coming, whether they hadnot already got hold of the whole land. They imagined themselves to be thevictims of a vast treachery, and utterly doomed to destruction. It is said that somesmall parties did not come in till three days afterwards. However, a few tried tomake their way back to Patusan at once, and one of the canoes that werepatrolling the river that morning was in sight of the camp at the very moment ofthe attack. It is true that at first the men in her leaped overboard and swam to theopposite bank, but afterwards they returned to their boat and started fearfully up-stream. Of these Tamb' Itam had an hour's advance.' Chapter 45

'When Tamb' Itam, paddling madly, came into the town-reach, the women,thronging the platforms before the houses, were looking out for the return of DainWaris's little fleet of boats. The town had a festive air; here and there men, stillwith spears or guns in their hands, could be seen moving or standing on theshore in groups. Chinamen's shops had been opened early; but the market-placewas empty, and a sentry, still posted at the corner of the fort, made out Tamb'Itam, and shouted to those within. The gate was wide open. Tamb' Itam jumpedashore and ran in headlong. The first person he met was the girl coming downfrom the house.

'Tamb' Itam, disordered, panting, with trembling lips and wild eyes, stood for atime before her as if a sudden spell had been laid on him. Then he broke out veryquickly: "They have killed Dain Waris and many more." She clapped her hands,and her first words were, "Shut the gates." Most of the fortmen had gone back totheir houses, but Tamb' Itam hurried on the few who remained for their turn ofduty within. The girl stood in the middle of the courtyard while the others ranabout. "Doramin," she cried despairingly, as Tamb' Itam passed her. Next timehe went by he answered her thought rapidly, "Yes. But we have all the powder inPatusan." She caught him by the arm, and, pointing at the house, "Call him out,"she whispered, trembling.

'Tamb' Itam ran up the steps. His master was sleeping. "It is I, Tamb' Itam," hecried at the door, "with tidings that cannot wait." He saw Jim turn over on thepillow and open his eyes, and he burst out at once. "This, Tuan, is a day of evil,an accursed day." His master raised himself on his elbow to listen--just as DainWaris had done. And then Tamb' Itam began his tale, trying to relate the story inorder, calling Dain Waris Panglima, and saying: "The Panglima then called out tothe chief of his own boatmen, 'Give Tamb' Itam something to eat' "--when hismaster put his feet to the ground and looked at him with such a discomposedface that the words remained in his throat.

' "Speak out," said Jim. "Is he dead?" "May you live long," cried Tamb' Itam. "Itwas a most cruel treachery. He ran out at the first shots and fell." . . . His masterwalked to the window and with his fist struck at the shutter. The room was madelight; and then in a steady voice, but speaking fast, he began to give him ordersto assemble a fleet of boats for immediate pursuit, go to this man, to the other--send messengers; and as he talked he sat down on the bed, stooping to lace hisboots hurriedly, and suddenly looked up. "Why do you stand here?" he askedvery red-faced. "Waste no time." Tamb' Itam did not move. "Forgive me, Tuan,but . . . but," he began to stammer. "What?" cried his master aloud, lookingterrible, leaning forward with his hands gripping the edge of the bed. "It is notsafe for thy servant to go out amongst the people," said Tamb' Itam, afterhesitating a moment.'Then Jim understood. He had retreated from one world, for a small matter of animpulsive jump, and now the other, the work of his own hands, had fallen in ruinsupon his head. It was not safe for his servant to go out amongst his own people! Ibelieve that in that very moment he had decided to defy the disaster in the onlyway it occurred to him such a disaster could be defied; but all I know is that,without a word, he came out of his room and sat before the long table, at thehead of which he was accustomed to regulate the affairs of his world, proclaimingdaily the truth that surely lived in his heart. The dark powers should not rob himtwice of his peace. He sat like a stone figure. Tamb' Itam, deferential, hinted atpreparations for defence. The girl he loved came in and spoke to him, but hemade a sign with his hand, and she was awed by the dumb appeal for silence init. She went out on the verandah and sat on the threshold, as if to guard him withher body from dangers outside.

'What thoughts passed through his head--what memories? Who can tell?Everything was gone, and he who had been once unfaithful to his trust had lostagain all men's confidence. It was then, I believe, he tried to write--to somebody--and gave it up. Loneliness was closing on him. People had trusted him with theirlives--only for that; and yet they could never, as he had said, never be made tounderstand him. Those without did not hear him make a sound. Later, towardsthe evening, he came to the door and called for Tamb' Itam. "Well?" he asked."There is much weeping. Much anger too," said Tamb' Itam. Jim looked up athim. "You know," he murmured. "Yes, Tuan," said Tamb' Itam. "Thy servant doesknow, and the gates are closed. We shall have to fight." "Fight! What for?" heasked. "For our lives." "I have no life," he said. Tamb' Itam heard a cry from thegirl at the door. "Who knows?" said Tamb' Itam. "By audacity and cunning wemay even escape. There is much fear in men's hearts too." He went out, thinkingvaguely of boats and of open sea, leaving Jim and the girl together.

'I haven't the heart to set down here such glimpses as she had given me of thehour or more she passed in there wrestling with him for the possession of herhappiness. Whether he had any hope-- what he expected, what he imagined--it isimpossible to say. He was inflexible, and with the growing loneliness of hisobstinacy his spirit seemed to rise above the ruins of his existence. She cried"Fight!" into his ear. She could not understand. There was nothing to fight for. Hewas going to prove his power in another way and conquer the fatal destiny itself.He came out into the courtyard, and behind him, with streaming hair, wild of face,breathless, she staggered out and leaned on the side of the doorway. "Open thegates," he ordered. Afterwards, turning to those of his men who were inside, hegave them leave to depart to their homes. "For how long, Tuan?" asked one ofthem timidly. "For all life," he said, in a sombre tone.

'A hush had fallen upon the town after the outburst of wailing and lamentationthat had swept over the river, like a gust of wind from the opened abode ofsorrow. But rumours flew in whispers, filling the hearts with consternation andhorrible doubts. The robbers were coming back, bringing many others with them,in a great ship, and there would be no refuge in the land for any one. A sense ofutter insecurity as during an earthquake pervaded the minds of men, whowhispered their suspicions, looking at each other as if in the presence of someawful portent.

'The sun was sinking towards the forests when Dain Waris's body was broughtinto Doramin's campong. Four men carried it in, covered decently with a whitesheet which the old mother had sent out down to the gate to meet her son on hisreturn. They laid him at Doramin's feet, and the old man sat still for a long time,one hand on each knee, looking down. The fronds of palms swayed gently, andthe foliage of fruit trees stirred above his head. Every single man of his peoplewas there, fully armed, when the old nakhoda at last raised his eyes. He movedthem slowly over the crowd, as if seeking for a missing face. Again his chin sankon his breast. The whispers of many men mingled with the slight rustling of theleaves.

'The Malay who had brought Tamb' Itam and the girl to Samarang was there too."Not so angry as many," he said to me, but struck with a great awe and wonderat the "suddenness of men's fate, which hangs over their heads like a cloudcharged with thunder." He told me that when Dain Waris's body was uncoveredat a sign of Doramin's, he whom they often called the white lord's friend wasdisclosed lying unchanged with his eyelids a little open as if about to wake.Doramin leaned forward a little more, like one looking for something fallen on theground. His eyes searched the body from its feet to its head, for the woundmaybe. It was in the forehead and small; and there was no word spoken whileone of the by-standers, stooping, took off the silver ring from the cold stiff hand.In silence he held it up before Doramin. A murmur of dismay and horror ranthrough the crowd at the sight of that familiar token. The old nakhoda stared at it,and suddenly let out one great fierce cry, deep from the chest, a roar of pain andfury, as mighty as the bellow of a wounded bull, bringing great fear into men'shearts, by the magnitude of his anger and his sorrow that could be plainlydiscerned without words. There was a great stillness afterwards for a space,while the body was being borne aside by four men. They laid it down under atree, and on the instant, with one long shriek, all the women of the householdbegan to wail together; they mourned with shrill cries; the sun was setting, and inthe intervals of screamed lamentations the high sing-song voices of two old menintoning the Koran chanted alone.

'About this time Jim, leaning on a gun-carriage, looked at the river, and turned hisback on the house; and the girl, in the doorway, panting as if she had run herselfto a standstill, was looking at him across the yard. Tamb' Itam stood not far fromhis master, waiting patiently for what might happen. All at once Jim, who seemedto be lost in quiet thought, turned to him and said, "Time to finish this."

' "Tuan?" said Tamb' Itam, advancing with alacrity. He did not know what hismaster meant, but as soon as Jim made a movement the girl started too andwalked down into the open space. It seems that no one else of the people of thehouse was in sight. She tottered slightly, and about half-way down called out toJim, who had apparently resumed his peaceful contemplation of the river. Heturned round, setting his back against the gun. "Will you fight?" she cried. "Thereis nothing to fight for," he said; "nothing is lost." Saying this he made a steptowards her. "Will you fly?" she cried again. "There is no escape," he said,stopping short, and she stood still also, silent, devouring him with her eyes. "Andyou shall go?" she said slowly. He bent his head. "Ah!" she exclaimed, peering athim as it were, "you are mad or false. Do you remember the night I prayed you toleave me, and you said that you could not? That it was impossible! Impossible!Do you remember you said you would never leave me? Why? I asked you for nopromise. You promised unasked--remember." "Enough, poor girl," he said. "Ishould not be worth having."

'Tamb' Itam said that while they were talking she would laugh loud andsenselessly like one under the visitation of God. His master put his hands to hishead. He was fully dressed as for every day, but without a hat. She stoppedlaughing suddenly. "For the last time," she cried menacingly, "will you defendyourself?" "Nothing can touch me," he said in a last flicker of superb egoism.Tamb' Itam saw her lean forward where she stood, open her arms, and run athim swiftly. She flung herself upon his breast and clasped him round the neck.

' "Ah! but I shall hold thee thus," she cried. . . . "Thou art mine!"

'She sobbed on his shoulder. The sky over Patusan was blood-red, immense,streaming like an open vein. An enormous sun nestled crimson amongst the tree-tops, and the forest below had a black and forbidding face.

'Tamb' Itam tells me that on that evening the aspect of the heavens was angryand frightful. I may well believe it, for I know that on that very day a cyclonepassed within sixty miles of the coast, though there was hardly more than alanguid stir of air in the place.

'Suddenly Tamb' Itam saw Jim catch her arms, trying to unclasp her hands. Shehung on them with her head fallen back; her hair touched the ground. "Comehere!" his master called, and Tamb' Itam helped to ease her down. It was difficultto separate her fingers. Jim, bending over her, looked earnestly upon her face,and all at once ran to the landing-stage. Tamb' Itam followed him, but turning hishead, he saw that she had struggled up to her feet. She ran after them a fewsteps, then fell down heavily on her knees. "Tuan! Tuan!" called Tamb' Itam,"look back;" but Jim was already in a canoe, standing up paddle in hand. He didnot look back. Tamb' Itam had just time to scramble in after him when the canoefloated clear. The girl was then on her knees, with clasped hands, at the water-gate. She remained thus for a time in a supplicating attitude before she sprangup. "You are false!" she screamed out after Jim. "Forgive me," he cried. "Never!Never!" she called back.'Tamb' Itam took the paddle from Jim's hands, it being unseemly that he shouldsit while his lord paddled. When they reached the other shore his master forbadehim to come any farther; but Tamb' Itam did follow him at a distance, walking upthe slope to Doramin's campong.

'It was beginning to grow dark. Torches twinkled here and there. Those they metseemed awestruck, and stood aside hastily to let Jim pass. The wailing of womencame from above. The courtyard was full of armed Bugis with their followers, andof Patusan people.

'I do not know what this gathering really meant. Were these preparations for war,or for vengeance, or to repulse a threatened invasion? Many days elapsedbefore the people had ceased to look out, quaking, for the return of the whitemen with long beards and in rags, whose exact relation to their own white manthey could never understand. Even for those simple minds poor Jim remainsunder a cloud.

'Doramin, alone! immense and desolate, sat in his arm-chair with the pair offlintlock pistols on his knees, faced by a armed throng. When Jim appeared, atsomebody's exclamation, all the heads turned round together, and then the massopened right and left, and he walked up a lane of averted glances. Whispersfollowed him; murmurs: "He has worked all the evil." "He hath a charm." . . . Heheard them--perhaps!

'When he came up into the light of torches the wailing of the women ceasedsuddenly. Doramin did not lift his head, and Jim stood silent before him for atime. Then he looked to the left, and moved in that direction with measuredsteps. Dain Waris's mother crouched at the head of the body, and the greydishevelled hair concealed her face. Jim came up slowly, looked at his deadfriend, lifting the sheet, than dropped it without a word. Slowly he walked back.

' "He came! He came!" was running from lip to lip, making a murmur to which hemoved. "He hath taken it upon his own head," a voice said aloud. He heard thisand turned to the crowd. "Yes. Upon my head." A few people recoiled. Jim waitedawhile before Doramin, and then said gently, "I am come in sorrow." He waitedagain. "I am come ready and unarmed," he repeated.

'The unwieldy old man, lowering his big forehead like an ox under a yoke, madean effort to rise, clutching at the flintlock pistols on his knees. From his throatcame gurgling, choking, inhuman sounds, and his two attendants helped himfrom behind. People remarked that the ring which he had dropped on his lap felland rolled against the foot of the white man, and that poor Jim glanced down atthe talisman that had opened for him the door of fame, love, and success withinthe wall of forests fringed with white foam, within the coast that under the westernsun looks like the very stronghold of the night. Doramin, struggling to keep hisfeet, made with his two supporters a swaying, tottering group; his little eyesstared with an expression of mad pain, of rage, with a ferocious glitter, which thebystanders noticed; and then, while Jim stood stiffened and with bared head inthe light of torches, looking him straight in the face, he clung heavily with his leftarm round the neck of a bowed youth, and lifting deliberately his right, shot hisson's friend through the chest.

'The crowd, which had fallen apart behind Jim as soon as Doramin had raised hishand, rushed tumultuously forward after the shot. They say that the white mansent right and left at all those faces a proud and unflinching glance. Then with hishand over his lips he fell forward, dead.

'And that's the end. He passes away under a cloud, inscrutable at heart,forgotten, unforgiven, and excessively romantic. Not in the wildest days of hisboyish visions could he have seen the alluring shape of such an extraordinarysuccess! For it may very well be that in the short moment of his last proud andunflinching glance, he had beheld the face of that opportunity which, like anEastern bride, had come veiled to his side.

'But we can see him, an obscure conqueror of fame, tearing himself out of thearms of a jealous love at the sign, at the call of his exalted egoism. He goesaway from a living woman to celebrate his pitiless wedding with a shadowy idealof conduct. Is he satisfied-- quite, now, I wonder? We ought to know. He is one ofus--and have I not stood up once, like an evoked ghost, to answer for his eternalconstancy? Was I so very wrong after all? Now he is no more, there are dayswhen the reality of his existence comes to me with an immense, with anoverwhelming force; and yet upon my honour there are moments, too when hepasses from my eyes like a disembodied spirit astray amongst the passions ofthis earth, ready to surrender himself faithfully to the claim of his own world ofshades.

'Who knows? He is gone, inscrutable at heart, and the poor girl is leading a sortof soundless, inert life in Stein's house. Stein has aged greatly of late. He feels ithimself, and says often that he is "preparing to leave all this; preparing to leave . .." while he waves his hand sadly at his butterflies.'

September 1899--July 1900.

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